Embrace the Suck

It’s been a while since I’ve written, both for this newsletter and for the Secret Sharing Circle. I just haven’t been feeling like myself. The last part of May and all of June felt really weird…not so much dark as just empty. I’ve struggled with depression before - low-grade depression throughout most of my childhood and adolescence, a few full-blown dark summers in adulthood - but this is different. 

It started out in May as a rising panic. A very scary emptiness. Something I knew, with every fiber of my being, that I would do almost anything to escape from. 

The first time it happened was when I was sitting at my desk, going through my very clogged inbox; my iced coffee was almost gone, and I had a meeting in 30 minutes. I was trying to decide whether or not I had time to dash around the corner to the Dunnies (sidenote: I have started to abbreviate everything into a “ie” or “y”…like “spensie” for expensive, or “flexi” for flexible, or “Dunnies” for Dunn Brothers, and it is incredibly annoying even to me when I do it but I just can’t seem to stop) or if Postmates could get there in time. “Or maybe we just don’t get another coffee,” I thought. After all, I’ve been trying to cut back on caffeine, and those iced oat milk latte calories do really add up, and also it’s maybe not all that healthy to NEED a coffee in order to get through a Zoom meeting?

And I swear to god, the split second after I found myself thinking that, I felt the panic literally rise inside my body. I stared at a stock photo of a businesswoman and heard a voice inside my head scream, I don’t want to feel this. The thought of having to face a work call and then do something mundane like taxes without having coffee to drink or candy to eat or a promise made that I would order out or buy something cute from Target afterwards…it was a very particular kind of pain, a certain brand of fear over how painful I knew those tasks were going to be without something to elevate or distract me. 

I literally joke about how coffee is my emotional support drink, but this time, that felt really really real: Having to just sit with myself was hard enough, I found myself thinking. Having to sit with myself while also doing something boring and mundane? UGH, NO. 

The second time hit a few days later. I’ve been trying to listen to my hunger, and after a late lunch, I just wasn’t hungry for dinner. I spent the evening decluttering my closet, and during a particularly boring moment, I thought about how maybe I wanted to go eat something…but then I reminded myself that I wasn’t even hungry, and besides, it was already 8:30 and way too late for a meal. And then I felt it again, that panic: This inner distress that I had to live in this very boring, slightly frustrating moment and I couldn’t use food to numb out or distract myself from it. 

In my mind’s eye, there was this grown-up part of me that very much wanted to give in to the temper tantrum’ing, kid part of me…like my adult self was trying to coddle and take care of this small hysterical self. I found myself thinking, you’ve suffered enough. It was one of those defining thoughts that you just know has been swimming under the surface of your subconscious for years, and when it finally floats to the surface, it’s enough to capsize your whole entire being. 

The conscious awareness of it, the clarity of thought, hit like a mack truck: I don’t want to feel how it feels when it’s just me and nothing else, interacting with the reality of my life with nothing to distract me from it. 

The small flashes of panic continued. At times I would be cognizant of what was happening, and those were the times when I would just sort of clench my fists and wait for it to pass. Other times, I was either too physically or emotionally exhausted to fight back and would just give in to it by numbing out through another coffee or food or zoning out in front of the TV. 

Which actually didn’t matter, either way. It just kept growing. That yawning chasm just groaned deeper and wider, seemingly with each passing day. 

Suddenly, it wasn’t just coffee or Chipotle that it was rising up against…it was everything. I would go through my day and participate in the activities that usually fulfilled or entertained me, and then out of the blue I’d feel a plummeting drop, where it all suddenly felt so meaningless. None of this stuff was going to make me happy, not truly, and I couldn’t think of a single thing that really ever would. Accomplishments weren’t going to change this feeling…neither was falling in love, getting in the best shape ever, or netting a monthly 10K. Moving to the ocean, traveling the world, getting my book published? Those might even just make it worse, because then what would I even have to look forward to?!

And worst part of it all was that, deep down, I suspected that this was actually how I really felt, genuinely and authentically, all the time. I had just gotten super good at finding different things to cover it up or distract myself from it. 

When I got serious in May about not numbing out with food, it was like that old cartoon where the guy patched a leak in the boat only for a new leak to spring forth: Suddenly I was booking all these trips, doing all this shopping, and throwing myself into a big apartment makeover. I was cognizant enough to recognize that, even though I was spending well within my means, I was starting to feel a little out of control. More than that, I found myself doing stuff like booking a trip, feeling great about it for about a day or two, and then waking up and wondering where and when I should book a trip to next. I’m fucking doing it again! I told myself. 

I realized that throughout my life, whenever I stopped one coping behavior, there was always a new one that swiftly stepped in to take its place. Take for instance, what happened a handful of years ago: I went from acting like alcohol and cigarettes were my best friends to restricting my eating so I could feel fuckable again to trying to cure all that endless boredom with a new boyfriend. When that super-shitty relationship fell apart (THANK GOD), I started stuffing my feelings down by stuffing my face. That worked really nicely for a pretty long time, and if I’m blatantly honest with you, gaining a shit ton of weight actually didn’t bother me as much as everyone assumes it did. I didn’t love being 100 pounds overweight, but I also didn’t hate it…? It gave me a really nice excuse to be invisible for a while and not date and to not go after the big things I said I wanted. Instead, I got to just stay home and self-isolate, because you know what’s really easy? Watching AD’s Open House and Keeping Up With The Kardashians while stuffing down all that emptiness and anxiety with a quarter pounder, some fries, and a chocolate milkshake. THAT feels good. Compared to the nagging boredom and seemingly-endless sadness and that aching pool of profound loneliness that never seems to have a fucking bottom to it, it fucking felt GREAT. 

So obviously, when I decided it was time to turn things around, start taking care of myself again, and stop numbing out through food, anyone with half a working knowledge in emotional intelligence could have probably placed a fairly safe bet that the emotional gaping maw I had been running away from my entire life wasn’t just gonna slink away without a fight. 

June was when it got really intense. The only time I could predict it was when I got ready for bed and when I woke up in the morning. Otherwise, I would be going through my day, feeling totally fine, and then suddenly I’d feel like I’d been grabbed by the ankles and yanked down into a pit full of dementors. I cried a lot, not because I was super sad, but because I couldn’t escape it. I would grab an iced coffee and go to Target and then sit in the parking lot, weeping to my friends on Marco Polo because it felt like nothing actually made me feel good anymore. 

But the truth is, it wasn’t that nothing felt good…it just was that nothing was allowing me to numb out. I could go get that iced coffee or buy something cute at Target and it would maybe boost my mood a little bit, but those empty feelings were still gonna be waiting for me when I got ready for bed. I would work on my book for hours and feel pleased with the progress I was making, but knew it was all going to seem so meaningless when I woke up in the morning. 

At the very end of June, I drove to my parents’ place up north to spend some time with my niece. The three of them were still on the road when I arrived at the lake house, so I went down to the dock to try to emotionally prepare myself for three days full of family time that I’d be spending right before I flew out to Washington for a five-day trip with a friend. I had cried a couple times on the way up, just from feeling so strange and emotionally wrung-out. I don’t know where my heart is anymore, I kept thinking, as I piloted my truck up the old familiar roads leading from Stillwater up to Hayward. The Big 3 - love, God, and legacy - feel like they’re no longer the sustaining answer for fulfillment. Love is tough and it takes so much trust, and no matter how hard I try, I just never seem to get it right with anyone I love…which makes me feel like I just don’t even want to try anymore. My spiritual life has always held so much wonder and magic, but sometimes it feels like this dimension can be such a drag and God is a real nerd for sending me here. 

And that ever-present pressure to fulfill all my potential and leave some kind of adorable legacy - once the single best thing that would bounce me out of bed in the morning and propel me furiously through my days - is now just another way to fill my time until the yawning chasm greets me as I ready for bed. After all, I keep telling myself, if I’m not going to feel good, I might as well feel productive.

I thought through all this as I sat on the reclining chair on the dock and watched an eagle soar higher than I had ever seen one fly: It was so far up in the sky that you could barely see it. I knew from my past work with trance channeling and shamanic dream journeying that eagles and hawks are meaningful, powerful, and personal symbols for me…but I also tend to take that as a grain of salt when I’m up north, because these days almost every lake up north has a bald eagle or hawk in residence. 

This felt different, though. See from a higher perspective, I thought, repeating the animal symbolism from an oracle deck as I watched the eagle continue to soar, higher and higher. I knew I wasn’t always going to feel the way I currently did…that eventually, I would slowly start to shift back to my old optimistic self. But I was beginning to wonder if maybe the reason why it felt like nothing in my usual life meant anything was because it wasn’t supposed to, anymore. Maybe this whole time I had been attaching meaning to the wrong things, or to too-small things, and my attention was just being cleared in a really intense way so I could finally discover what truly did - or would - matter. Do I need to have kids? I wondered. Start a charity? Buy some land? 

Maybe I just needed to relax and let myself coast through this while I waited to see if the universe had anything new to show me. 

Another eagle appeared, soaring above the lake. A hawk flew into the woods along the shore, about a dozen feet to my right. And then a third eagle flew in from across the lake. After making a few more figure-8s in the sky, she perched on the tallest tip of the lookout tree on Loon Island, and settled in. 

“Traveling is so healing,” Lindsay said later that week, as we sat out on the balcony of our B & B just outside of Anacortes, Washington. The house was on the bay, with stairs leading down to the beach, and the backyard looked like something from a South of France fever dream…lush landscaping full of colorful flowers and beautiful trees. We really could not have asked for a more lovely place to watch the sun begin to set. But as we watched eagles soar over the boats lingering in the bay (I would continue to see at least two bald eagles a day while in Washington, with the record being six different ones spotted that Friday…I also found an eagle feather on the beach below Deception Pass, which if you believe in spiritual symbolism, you know is kind of a big deal), I found myself wondering what was going to heal me. 

Traveling used to be the thing for me. The dream. I usually crave global experiences the way some women crave kids. And Washington…for years now, my version of counting sheep is this scenario in my head of my rescue dog sitting copilot as I drive a packed truck of our stuff out to the Northwest to live in a small coastal town, where we can spend the rest of our leisurely lives gazing at mountains and walking along the ocean every morning. It’s still the only thought, the only future-trip, that has really brought me any comfort or peace in the last month or so. 

And I still appreciate the privilege and the beauty of seeing the mountains and the sea, but right then, it all felt like wading around aimlessly in the shallows. 

“Nothing really makes me truly happy anymore, so who cares,” I joked to Lindsay in Seattle, after the wave pulled me down again while we were discussing where we should make a reservation for dinner. And that’s it, I think, I decided a day later, as I stared at the mountain peaks floating below my plane window. A decade and a half ago, a man I loved who loved me back told me that he just wanted to disappear. I knew what he meant then, and I know how that feels now. But I also realize that this thing wasn’t going to let me go…that even my ultimate mental worry-stone of disappearing into the Northwest with a packed truck, a a couple of dogs, and a view of the ocean wasn’t going to just make this go away. 

So what if I just give into it, I asked myself. What if, instead of trying to claw and crawl my way up from all these deep drops…what if I just gave up, moved in, and lived here for a while? Just resign myself to the fact that life is going to feel like absolute shit for the time being, and embrace the suck. If I’m already going to feel empty and like life is entirely meaningless, then I might as well take this opportunity to finally eliminate every single coping mechanism and face the big fucking fear of what it’s actually like to live entirely in the boring, mundane present. To sit inside of every single feeling that I’ve been running away from my whole entire life…with just me and nothing else, interacting with the reality of my life with nothing to distract me from it. 

Maybe that’s the exact higher perspective that thousands of eagles across America have been trying to get me to realize! 

And I don’t want to do it, because even though I already feel like crap mentally and emotionally, the thought of not only willfully allowing that to happen, but going towards it by eliminating any and all coping mechanisms, makes me want to break out into a deep, cold sweat. My first inclination with even minor discomfort or pain is to always to sprint towards the first thing that I think might make me feel better. And now I’m just going to not…? I’m just gonna sit there, and actively let myself feel uncomfortable? 

But then again, what choice do I have? I either do it now when things can’t get much worse, and confront and then clear the crutches that prevent me from feeling genuinely GOOD; or I can ignore everything, continue to try to distract myself while I wait to feel better again, and then just hope that yet another dark summer doesn’t rise up again. 

So that’s where I’m at. That’s the update. I don’t have any answers yet (and by saying that, I’m not asking for advice, so please do not give me any). I’m still in the thick of it, and only now just getting up the guts to start doing the thing where I just sit inside of it when it hits. And I know this post is long, but wow, so is life, so thanks for sticking all the way through this one. 

I’ll be back next week with more. 

BYE

AC

"Forgiveness...is more than saying sorry" (BWE Weekly Update: Week 15 / February 27, 2021)

That subject line comes directly from “Just Friends”, one of the best movies of all time, especially because it transcends the “Christmas movie” category in that it’s worth watching ALL year long, not just during the holidays. 

So, I wrote out this really long post this week about the next part of the BWE Process, which is identifying the internal and external blocks to what you want. And it was detailed and thorough, but good GOD was it boring. It was also very “So, the next thing you want to do is…” which is just not the tone I want to have with this project, you know? I like the idea of one day being able to teach people this stuff, but I very much want that to come from my own example. 

So I decided to scrap it, miss my self-assigned deadline of sending this out Thursday evening, and spent most of Friday workshopping this thing I’ve been doing around creating new beliefs to replace old, limiting ones, and then dropping those new beliefs into habit loops. That post was less boring, but man was it long, and so after finally finishing it on Friday evening, I decided that I would let it percolate overnight and then proofread + edit it with fresh eyes on Saturday morning. 

But I couldn’t shake the feeling that that wasn’t really what I wanted to talk about this week, either. I woke up on Saturday morning, did the Breaking the Habit of Being Myself meditation, and then decided to write a whole new post. 

A few days ago, I got a huge hit around practicing more forgiveness as a way to change my energy (and gratitude, but we’ll talk more about that next week). It came to me in a roundabout way…I was brushing my teeth and thinking about all of these big, scary goals I had announced in this newsletter last week. Feeling that old fear creep up, I worried about actually being able to accomplish them. The new life in L.A., in particular, started to feel big and scary again. What if I’m not the kind of person who can actually make it in L.A.? Or, more to the point, make it in Hollywood? I asked myself. 

“Then you’ll just have to become the kind of person who can,” I heard a voice say. 

In order to do that, I realized, I had to start to doing the things that Dr. Joe Dispenza and Zach Bush, MD, talk a lot about in regards to letting go of the past. In very simplistic terms, it is almost impossible, from a quantum and cellular standpoint, to create a brand new future and identity for myself if I’m still constantly stuck in the past. 

There is a LOT I want to talk about regarding the above, so just expect me to bring it up at least a few more times during these newsletters. However, for today, I’m just gonna focus in on releasing the past through forgiveness as a way to create a new future for yourself.

I am not super great at forgiveness. I tend to toggle between not carrying a grudge against those who have severely wronged me and hating people with the fire of a thousand suns for the dumbest, smallest reasons. 

I also have a lot of what you might call “anger.” Which tends to manifest as low-grade bitterness and resentment (unless you’re some dipshit from high school who comes onto my FB page to tell me I don’t know anything about the real world…THEN you will see just how much latent rage is roiling beneath this surface). This, again, could become a whole post on its own, but it’s Saturday and so we just don’t have time today. 

These feelings serve as a defense mechanism. So do grudges. Subconsciously, I seem to think that if I can keep feeling resentful and angry towards the people or situations that have hurt me, then I’ll remain protected against them. When I tap into this energy, all I see is a hurt and angry fox hunched up and looking back over its’ shoulder, warning whoever’s out there to not come closer while it licks its’ wounds. 

But the thing is, that’s not working for me anymore. Staying stuck in my past and using it as a way to protect myself from any future hurt is just…the exact opposite of everything I want for myself. And that kind of operating mechanism sort of worked for me when I didn’t trust myself (or when I didn’t trust that I would be able to aptly handle those that I can’t trust), but now I do. I trust myself a lot. Maybe not 100% yet, but I’m getting closer to it all the time. 

So I had this sort of realization that I was carrying all of this resentment and bitterness towards people who aren’t even in my life anymore. And, even more relevant, I was carrying all this resentment and bitterness towards myself for allowing them to hurt me. There’s this hilarious Tik Tok trend set to “Don’t You Want Somebody To Love” by Jefferson Airplane, where someone mentions some awful or embarrassing memory and then it’s just quick hits of them cringing over it throughout their day, and that is really what it is like for me, sometimes! 

And I realized something…with all this reading and research and work that I’ve been doing around neuropathways and overwriting old beliefs, if I’ve still got all those old OLD memories banging around in my brain, that means less room for the stuff I DO want. I mean, I’m still carrying around a memory of me doing something stupid when I was NINE that still regularly gets pulled up when my dick brain wants me to feel bad about myself. 

That is NOT productive! It is also NOT helpful! 

So I started doing this thing…every time a memory like that comes up, I stop and tell myself, my guides, the universe, my brain, whatever, out loud, that I don't want this memory anymore. It is no longer useful to me, and I’m choosing to not carry it in my body or in my brain anymore. “I release this memory from my body and brain, and I command my brain to replace the space with something new.”

And I swear to god, it WORKS. 

Sometimes, I can literally feel it being released from my body - my whole body shudders, I get chills, and even when I try to pull up the memory again, it has none of the emotional or cringy components that it did before. Or, it just doesn’t come up again. 

So this week, I took that a step further by focusing on clearing out more space through forgiveness. First, I made a written list of all the people in my life that I was still carrying resentment, anger, or bitterness toward. Then, gradually, it became a list of every single person that I had any type of bad feelings towards…even if I didn’t even really know them but their IG feed annoyed me, I wrote down their name. Why? Because I started to realize that I just don’t want to carry any bad feelings towards anyone, anymore, and for an entirely selfish reason: It just doesn’t serve me in any way, and it’s taking up energy that I would much rather use towards getting my life. 

And it also doesn’t serve them, either…not even in the way we think it should. How many people have figured out that you don’t like them and have totally changed because of it? For me, the number has been zero. I have gone out of my way to make some people very uncomfortable through my thorough and blatant dislike of them and they’re still the same shitty human beings they were before. 

So, anyway, I had a really long list! So much so that it felt a little overwhelming. I usually like to use a Forgiveness meditation by Gabby Bernstein that has been really powerful in the past for really big resentments and relationships, but if I did that for each person on this list, that would take me all year. 

So instead, I decided to try using Ho'oponopono, the Hawaiian Forgiveness Ritual. The Core of the Ho'oponopono are the four magic sentences, which I thought were “I forgive you, I am sorry, thank you, I love you”, meaning…”I forgive you, I am sorry I have held onto this for so long, thank you for teaching me what I needed to know, and (directed at them and yourself) I love you.” 

Which was hard enough for me to do with some of the big names on my life. In fact, that shit made me ANGRY. It was benevolent enough for me to even forgive them in the first place. But saying I’m sorry? To THEM?! I do NOT thank them! And I do NOT fucking love them! 

But it turns out, I was wrong, and the actual Ho'oponopono is even harder! 

It’s actually: 

I am sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. Thank you.

Wow, no thank YOU. 

But as we’ve learned during this project, if I’m resistant to something, it usually means I need to either dig deeper to find out why or just move through that resistance and try it anyway. 

So, I set about learning more about it, trying to stick mainly to knowledge that was directly from Hawaiian indigenous spiritual leaders, but also finding the below helpful: 

With regular practice, reciting these four simple phrases helps develop self-love and self-esteem at the times when we need it most. In this way, it’s both a lullaby to the self and a guaranteed insightful way to approach forgiving other people.

Part of the reason why this traditional Hawaiian forgiveness prayer is so powerful is that it first requires you to acknowledge that wrong was done by saying you’re sorry.

Having other people acknowledge our feelings is a universal need; in ho’oponopono, you must first acknowledge that wrongdoing exists, which is a way of acknowledging these feelings. Only then will it be possible to find it in your heart to forgive someone else, or yourself.

In the final step, you acknowledge love – both for yourself, and others.

- Grace & Lightness dot com

And then I stumbled upon the words “The miracle lies in your willingness to try it”, which is pretty much all you have to say to get me to try anything. 

So I tried it. I’m trying it. I felt so much resistance to it first…it felt like I was giving away so much power to certain people I never want to give anything to ever again. But I just keep repeating it and feeling my way through it, and gradually, the resistance eases up, and I find myself back in the place I usually am, looking at forgiveness as an act of slicing through the thick, rusted chain of negative energy that links me to that other person. 

I also like that this is a one-two shot…a healing for my relationship to others and also a self-healing for myself. 

So anyway, it’s a practice, so I’m practicing it. My goal is continue to stay in a place where, when I start to feel that old resentment or bitterness - or even just negative feelings towards someone - I quickly take it through this practice and release it. 

Since this forgiveness and releasing is a ton of energy work, I’ve also been following it up with restorative yoga, which has felt really good…especially when it’s literally just 20 minutes of lying down on the mat and breathing. I get to feel like I’m doing something while I’m actually doing NOTHING!

God, I wish I could carry that over to everything else in my life…

Stanley Tucci: Search For Italy (on CNN)

Babies. This show. This SHOW. I was a lil’ scared that it was going to make me weep from longing, since your girl AC isn’t doing any international travel until she and 75% of the world has been vaccinated, but instead, it was the exact perfect thing to tide me over until then. The show is a BALM…a lovely, delightful, soothing show full of culinary adventures and interesting characters. Also, that beautiful bald bespectacled hunk of a man Stanley Tucci is so GD sexy and fun to watch. It’s a vacation in a show. I NEEDED it. And you probably do, too. 

Vital Proteins Madagascar Vanilla Collagen Latte

Look, at this point, Vital Proteins should just pay me to be an ambassador already, because I just keep recommending their products on here. I got the Vanilla in last week, and combined with oat milk, cashew milk, or some A2 milk, it is a super fantastic substitute for a regular vanilla latte. I’ve also been using it in combination with the Matcha Collagen Latte, which has improved the taste of the Matcha by 100%. 

Sleep Sounds by Alexa 

When it comes to sleep, I’ve never been a big white noise person. I still sleep with a nightlight as a full adult of 42, but the only time I’ve ever really needed to have noise going at night was when I lived in the haunted cottage in Rice Lake. 

However, in the last year or two, the external feature of my clairaudient abilities has experienced a noticeable upgrade. This has been kind of cool to experience during channelings or readings, but I would really prefer to not hear the sound of disembodied voices when I’m trying to go to sleep. 

Enter in Sleep Sounds by Alexa. Ocean and Thunderstorm Sounds are my go-tos, they are SO relaxing to fall asleep to, and I swear to god, the quality of my sleep has even improved since I’ve started using them. 

Strength Tarot Poster by ManyManyMoonsAgo (on Etsy)

I bought this poster of the Strength card to remind me of my personal theme for 2021, which is self-mastery. This Tarot card from the Major Arcana embodies that principle, and I was delighted to find a really cool, colorful rendition of the classic Rider-Waite-Smith illustration. My poster literally just arrived last night, and it turned out beautifully! The quality is excellent and the color is gorgeous. Every card in the Major Arcana represents a different part of the human experience, so if you’re looking for some new art to represent a quality you want to embody more this year, this is a very cool way to integrate that. 

Anyway, that’s it for me this week! Hope you babies have an excellent full moon experience, and if you’re feeling it, come hang with me on the @BigWorthEnergy IG Stories (I WILL also update the grid this week if it kills me) for more of what’s going on in my personal journey toward a stronger sense self-worth! 

Also, if you want daily and confidential updates on those doings, the annual membership to the Secret Sharing Circle is now 50% off for a very short time. 

Subscribe now

Sweet Dreams of Stanley Tucci,

-AC

"Well, Sh*t.": Figuring Out What You Want Most (Week 14/Day 100 (!!): Thursday, February 18, 2021)

When I turned 42 earlier this month, I took some time to write down a list of goals I wanted to accomplish this year. And I was feeling really good about them! They were ambitious but doable! They were clear and concise! They were logical yet pretty exciting! And I was going to tell you all about them when we got to the second part of the Big Worth Energy process (“Figure Out What You Want”) in a week or two!

But then last weekend, I started reading The Abundance Code by Julie Ann Cairns. Even though I feel pretty good about my current financial life, I picked it up on the recommendation of Rachel Rodgers of Hello 7, who repeatedly says that reading it completely changed the way she thinks about money. 

(And that babe now owns a multi-million dollar ranch, so if she says to do something, I’MMA DO IT)

I expected the book to mostly be a refresher course on how to change your subconscious beliefs so you can manifest more abundance, and guess what - I wasn’t wrong! 

But it also inadvertently upended the entire current direction of my life.

How It Started

The Abundance Code has a list of Action Steps at the end of each chapter (because it’s not a life design book unless you have homework!). At one point, I skimmed through one of the Action Steps lists and was like, “Oh my GOD, this is exactly the process I was just talking about in my last Weekly Update!” 

(Synchronicity is exciting to me. Unfollow if you don’t like it!!!!!!)

Action Steps 

1. What are your strongest desires in life? Write them out, without any judgment about whether you currently believe you could have those things or not. A great way to get to this information is to ask yourself, If money were not an obstacle, what would I be doing? Where would I be living? How would my life be different? First just make the list without editing yourself or listening to any internal voice that might be saying, But you can’t have that because of A, B, and C reasons. 

2. Now, take each item on your list and start to write out all the objections to it that your internal voice was putting forward. Why do you think you might not be able to have those things you desire? List the reasons. Don’t just dismiss your internal objections; take the time to write them down and acknowledge their existence. 

3. Start forming a mental picture of your ideal life. Based on the answers to the questions already posed: If money were not an obstacle, what would your ideal life look like? I mean envision the actual mental pictures. Where would you be? What would you be doing? Who would you be with? Would you be smiling? Keep an eye out for images that resonate with your concept of your ideal life. 

I was about to share my discovery on the @BigWorthEnergy IG Stories, but stopped to click through the Stories of a one Becca Kufrin, the former Bachelorette from Minnesota, whose Stories were all about exploring her “new neighborhood” in L.A. Feeling that old familiar burning, breathless sensation of envy, I immediately hopped over to her grid, scrolling through to find the exact post that would tell me when and why she had made the move to Los Angeles.

I paused when I came across the above photo, which was so reminiscent of how I felt the first time I was in L.A. almost a decade ago. It’s never going to go away, Amber, I heard a voice say. You’re never going to stop being envious of anyone who makes that leap. You want to believe that it’s only because someone handed them the perfect opportunity to do so, but it’s really just because you’re too scared to do it and they’re not. 

I threw down my phone, grabbed my laptop, and began writing out my full answers to the above action steps. 

How It’s Going

Here’s the thing (and I HATE saying “here’s the thing” but really, here IS the thing): I’ve done these sorts of deep-desire inquiries hundreds of times. I’ve also come clean to myself (and a few select others) about the things I wrote down per the above. A lot of them were also included in the initial process I talked about in last week’s newsletter. 

But I don’t know what it was this time that made everything that much more clear, so much more brutally honest. I say “brutally honest” because the things I desire most from my life are also the things that absolutely scare the shit out of me. When I get really honest about where I most want to live or what I really want to do with my life, all I hear in my head over and over is how hard those things are. And then they feel really fucking scary, and so I try to convince myself that maybe I don’t really want to do them after all.

Yet it all felt so much more doable under The Abundance Code position that if you don’t have the kind of beliefs that are driving you into the future you want, you just need to overwrite them with better beliefs. I could admit all the things I really really wanted in this lifetime - even the things I didn’t really believe I could actually have - because the point was to then hold them up under the light of this whole subconscious belief thing that I’ve been exploring through the Pathway, Dr. Joe’s meditation, and The Abundance Code to the absolute test. 

So I got really honest with myself. And now I’m getting really honest with you. Starting with my biggest, most ultimate dream in life: 

I live and work in Hollywood, writing bestselling books and award-winning screenplays (and preferably selling them as package deals because I kNoW hOw ThE bIzNiZ wOrKs bAyBeE) and getting to not just see those works come alive onscreen, but be an active participant in the process. 

Basically, I wanna be a part of it, except in L.A. instead of New York.

The thing is, besides traveling the world, this is exactly what I would want to do if I won the lottery or only had a year or two to live. 

So then why am I not doing it now? 

Well, because writing these things down was the easy part, right? Yes, embracing the full deep honesty of who you are and what you want can be tough, but it’s also a breeze to just put it down on paper and then walk away from it, crossing your fingers that someday you’ll get it. Which I’ve done a lot! 

This time, though, I felt my anxiety spike as I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to do that anymore. I either had to decide to do everything in my power to go after these dreams, or I had to be okay with wussing out again in favor of the easier, more accessible things. 

And to tell the truth, it took me a few days to decide! That’s the great part about keeping your deepest desires a secret and not declaring them publicly…there’s no one you have to make excuses to when you continually find yourself chickening out on them! You also get to change your mind constantly, and I LOVE doing that! 

But if I’m really going to do this Big Worth Energy project…if I’m really going to go for it the way I keep saying I am, then why not use it to try and achieve my biggest, most scariest dreams? 

If self-worth is all about your subconscious beliefs, and if subconscious beliefs really are the difference between the life you have and the life you want, then what better way to put that to the test than with the things I want most in the world but never quite believed in myself enough to go after them? 

The Part Where I Actually Do Stuff

Thus, here’s the big dreams that - with the help of the Big Worth Energy Project - I’ll be pursuing in the next 365 days: 

Complete my second novel, Singable Songs for A-Holes

Land a literary agent to rep and sell my work 

Complete two movie scripts 

Move to L.A. 

I will also be adding world travel to the list once we’re no longer in the middle of a global pani and myself + 75% of the world’s population has been vaccinated. 

Aaaand I also have a couple of big goals that I’m not sharing outside of the Secret Sharing Circle, because they’re currently too tender for public input and therefore are getting a lil’ extra protection (come along if you want by subscribing here).

More than anything, though, this year I want to stop being the kind of person who just dreams about these things, and instead become the kind of person who’s known for going out and actually getting them. 

Action Jackson

So how do I do that? 

Well, first, I’m using what I’ve learned during this project so far to: 

• Break each dream down into an actionable roadmap of achievable goals 

• Dig up and explore allll of the hard-knock stories, fear-mongering cautionary tales, and broke-down beliefs I’ve bundled these dreams under

• Work to overwrite each broke-down story with a new expansive belief 

• Put those new beliefs to work by using them to form new habit loops (cue - routine action - reward). Repeat until I find the one that sticks. 

Goal Digger

While I’m still working on completing the full roadmaps for each goal, here’s the timeline I’ve set: 

I’m finishing my second novel, Singable Songs for A-Holes, by the end of this year. 

After Singable Songs For A-Holes is completed by the end of 2021, I’m kicking off 2022 by taking myself through the query process and doing whatever it takes to land a literary agent, come hell or high water (would love if neither of those were necessary, however!). 

I’m also completing two movie scripts by this time next year: The script adaptation of The Middle of Nowhere and the script adaption of Singable Songs for A-Holes. 

Finally, I’m moving to Los Angeles by March 31, 2022. 

And to kick it all off, the first goal I’ll be achieving is the completion of the first draft of Singable Songs by March 31st, 2021.

I really want to say “I’m making it a goal” for that last one SO BAD!! but I gotta play to win with these goals and phrasing it that way is such an easy out for me. BWE Babies, I’ve been working this first draft FOR EV ER.

As in, at least 5 years. And I NEED TO JUST FINISH IT ALREADY. 

Truthfully, these are all things I’ve been wanting to do for years. I’ve even made public declarations about my intent to do a few of them, but eventually slinked off in silence when it all started to feel too hard and scared. 

But I’m not letting myself off the hook this time. While the thought of declaring these really big goals and ACTUALLY going after them legit terrifies the shit out of me, after making my decision this weekend I woke up every morning this week and was like, “Okay, so I’m going to go after all my book and screenwriting goals, move to L.A. next year, and that’s that. Cool.” 

And it felt scary but it also felt right. There may be some things that I’ll be doing on my own terms, but the point is that I’ll still be doing them. 

Because at this point in my life, I’d rather fail miserably but still get to say I tried rather than keep going through life knowing I haven’t even tried at all. 

So that’s that. 

Also, sidenote, today is officially 100 Days since I started Big Worth Energy. 

What a ride. 

What I’m Digging This Week:

The Abundance Code

Obviously. 

(Also, this is an affiliate link, so if *you* buy the book, please use it so that *I* can buy drugs) 

Veggies Made Great: Double Chocolate Muffins

Look, I don’t alway have what they call, “great taste.” Lots of people who have made the mistake of letting me control the AUX will tell you this. But I want you to know something…when it comes to healthy things, I am incredibly picky. And a double chocolate muffin that is made up of VEGETABLES?!? A VEGETABLE muffin that legit TASTES like a DOUBLE CHOCOLATE muffin??? This culinary invention truly got out of my dreams and into my life. Buy a bunch of boxes (in the frozen food section) the next time you go to Target (but not at the Edina one, because that’s where I shop and I swear to god if they’re out of stock when I get there, I will go down this subscriber list and personally interrogate each and every one of you who lives local) and thank me later. 

Honey Oatmilk Latte from Starbucks

I’m currently trying to cut down on caffeine and sugar, but since coffee/lattes are still my emotional support drink, I’m doing this whole thing where I get a couple Ventis of the Honey Oatmilk Latte from Starbucks at a time, and then portion them out into one Starbucks Tall cup a day. And I gotta tell you - it WORKS. I still get my fix, I don’t go overboard on the cawfee, and I also get to feel super dainty by sipping from a Tall cup like I’m some eternally skinny Real Housewife. 

Plus the drink is great, too. 

Bye Bye Now

Finally, if you wanna be a part of the day-to-day process of my going after all of these big fucking goals (it is gonna be a JOURNEY), you can join the Secret Sharing Circle and get daily updates to your inbox and/or via the @BigWorthEnergy Close Friends IG Stories! 

Subscribe now

See you next week!

AC

Weekly Update (Week 9 Thursday, January 14)

I’m currently sitting in bed at 11:11 (make a wish!) AM on a Thursday, surrounded by my iPhone, my headphones, a homemade oat milk latte, some Hershey Valentine’s Hugs, and a half dozen Zoom interview transcripts that I need to turn into a coherent script by EOD on Friday for a Target video. 

Right before midnight last night, I launched what will most likely become the scariest project of my life:

@amberl.carter

And I feel really good about it (and proud of myself for smashing all of my perfectionist/procrastination tendencies), but I’m also exhausted. 

I woke up feeling not great, and it came with the kind of a fatigue where you get a tiny burst of productive energy and then you literally need to lie down for another hour. Which is why I’m in bed, with my laptop…I know that resting and giving your body and mind a break is so important, but I promised myself that I would get certain things done today, and I don’t want to let myself down. 

There’s a lot of road to cover between my last update during Week 3 and today, the 65th day of the project. Probably the biggest thing that’s come out of it is that I managed to develop a working process, or a roadmap if you will, for how I want to proceed with this project. It’s an ever-evolving thing - I cannot tell you how many times over the course of the last 65 days that I’ve come up with an idea of something I think I should integrate, only to try it and be all, “Uh, NOPE.” My ultimate goal is to create a blueprint that I know, from my own experience, is not only incredibly effective but also easily replicable for anyone who is hoping to level up their own self-worth. 

I mean, I do love doing things only for me, but every once in a while it’s just cool to think about other people, y’know? 

Here’s the Big Worth Energy Process:

In the next few weeks, I’ll be going through each step and sharing some of things I’ve experienced + learned since starting this project. 

But to bring you up to speed on this week…it’s been wild stuff. The thing is, I feel like I’ve been waiting for years now for things to start happening, for stuff to shift…for something new and exciting to pop up in my life. 

Now I’ve realized that in order for that to happen, I had to shift first. Doing this project was the first step…as I was telling the Secret Sharing Circle last night in my Daily Update, I can’t even imagine what my life would be like now if I hadn’t launched BWE when I did. I would probably still be waiting to launch it, convincing myself to create more and more strategy around it before I even thought about debuting it. 

So I’ve been applying that more and more to my life…taking big risks and starting before I’m ready. Launching @amberl.carter last night? Part of that. Sending this Weekly Update today? Part of that as well. 

My instinct is to always sit on things until I’m convinced they’re perfect and flawless and ready, but the thing is, no matter how long I wait to launch them, they are neverperfect and flawless and ready. I used to negate the perfectionist label for decades because I am not an attention-to-detail person and nothing I put out is ever all that perfect…yet now I know that it actually does 100% apply to me, because it’s really about being too afraid to take risks because you’re so scared that if they’re flawed, then that obviously means that *you’re* flawed, too, which will surely only result in more of the pain and shame you’ve already experienced. 

So! I’m not doing that anymore. And the shift? It’s been working: Last night, before I finally fell asleep, I told myself that I really needed to start journaling again so I could keep track of everything that had happened in my life this week, because it is BIG stuff.

Speaking of sleep…I am fully and completely spent, so like the Bloodhound Gang in No Hard Feelings, I’m gonna wrap this up. 

If you’re like, “No, Amber, I want MORE! Tell me MORE! More intimate details! More private life exposes! GIVE IT ALL TO ME!”, then I invite you to sign up for the Secret Sharing Circle, which receives Daily Updates and access to the BWE Close Friends IG. And I’ll be straight with you - those Secret Sharing Circle peeps now know more about me than almost anyone else in the world. 

Subscribe now

That’s right. Like Degrassi: The Next Generation, I go there.

I DO swear a lot more than Paige, though. Just so’s ya know. 

Until next week!

-AC

"Who Is She?" Identifying Your Ideal Self (Weekly Update: Thursday, February 11)

Welcome to the very first part of the Big Worth Energy process: Identify Your Ideal Self!

Basically…who is she?

Before we get started, I’d like to set the tone by sharing a few lines from one of my favorite poets: 

Life’s a dance

You learn as you go

Sometimes you lead

Sometimes you follow

Don’t worry about what you don’t know

Life’s a dance

You learn as you go.

- John Michael Montgomery

That was beautiful. Thank you. 

Let’s begin! 

The Catalytic Converter 

To put it simply, every great journey of self-discovery starts with the sneaking suspicion that you could be so much more than who you are right now. 

For some, this is incredibly uncomfortable. I mean, it was for me! It took me years before I finally got up the courage to go after it. 

And it all started by figuring out exactly who that “so much more” actually was. 

“Who Is Conan O’Brien, and Why Is She So Sad?” 

The thing is, identifying your ideal self is both the easiest and the hardest step in the whole BWE process. 

I don’t even really have to ask you to close your eyes and get into a meditative state to find her: You probably already have a pretty good idea of who she is. 

But do you, really?

Because here’s where it gets hard: 

Most of us are not actually seeing our true, authentic, ideal selves. We are seeing the selves that we’ve been conditioned to think are ideal. 

Maybe your ideal self is actually NOT the person who wakes up at 5 AM to work out…maybe she's the self who has organized her life in such a way that she gets to wake up luxuriously every single day to the sound of the ocean waves and zero clock alarms.

Maybe you think your ideal self is a Rachel Hollis type hustler who has a blog, a podcast, a collection of bestselling books, and a huge following on IG…when actually, your true ideal is a private investor who spends her time traveling and writing and basically doing whatever the fuck she wants without having to capture anything for the ‘gram. 

Or, maybe you think your ideal self is a high achieving fitness guru but what your higher self really wants is to be living this kind of life:

And like, who WOULDN’T, right? 

I’m gonna warn you: It can actually be quite unnerving to sift through the things you think compose your dream life whilst repeatedly asking yourself if this is something that truly reflects your highest preferences…or if it’s just something that someone somewhere made you think you wanted because they thought it was attractive or impressive. 

Like, is that really YOUR dream house, or is it the dream house you think your perfect partner would like living in?

(The ladies know exactly what I’m talking about with that example)

It’s-ah Me, Mario!

For me, doing this was fuckin’ radical. 

First, I had to allow myself to admit that I wanted a really big life. This broke open a LOT of shame for me: A variety of messaging from childhood and toxic relationships had conditioned me to believe that I should be ashamed for wanting a “flashy” lifestyle, and that the things I wanted to achieve were totally impractical and really hard and the fact that I even believed it was possible for me just proved that I lived in a make-believe world.

But what if all of that wasn’t true? What if it was actually super possible and totally easy and all I had to do was decide that I really did want it? 

So I tried this mindset and allowed myself to dream really big. 

To support myself in my “you can have a really big life” mind-movie making, I played a lot of Celine Dion videos, listened to every song by Bryan Adams that had been on a movie soundtrack in the ‘90s, and sifted through countless Pinterest boards. I started piecing together all of these dreams and visions I had long ago left behind because I had convinced myself somewhere along the way that they weren’t realistic or attractive. 

This in and of itself is a huge exercise in leveling up that self-worth, because MAN, do those Negative Nancy voices come out to play once you kick open the doors to greater possibilities. 

And then I figured out how to hack the system in my favor: If something came up and I immediately heard that dickish inner voice say something to the effect of “Dream on, betch!”, then I knew it was 100% something I needed to include on my ideal self/dream life list. 

By the end of this process, my ideal self was so clear and authentic that when I dived into a visualization exercise set to a Celine Dion song (I almost never listen to that golden-voiced weirdo, but for some reason, her songs work REALLY well for manifestation!), it was such a powerful moment that I literally started crying with gratitude and joy…because, like, this COULD be my life!

And then I opened my eyes and had to confront the same bullshit life I was still living in. 

Which sounds like a total drag - and it is - but it’s also supremely vital to the process. 

Because when you do this, you’re able to swiftly identify the gaps between where that person is and where you are. 

This is supremely motivating. It’s the mental equivalent of taking that primo Mercedes for a test drive and then having to get back into your old used ‘00 Toyota Camry. 

But keep in mind: This process isn’t meant to make you feel bad about your present self.

Instead, consider it a calling to your consciousness about what kind of energy your soul is longing to inhabit. It’s meant to open yourself up to the possibilities, to the unlimited potential of your future self.

What’s the highest version of yourself? For the rest of the week, I invite you to do some digging on what your ideal self really looks like. Write down everything about her - what she wears, what she drives, what she smells like, where she vacations, what kind of work she does. 

Take everyone else out of the equation,go all the way back to your childhood fantasies, and dig super deep. Make a phat Pinterest board. Put together one of those cool slide show movies where it’s just a bunch of images that rep your ideal self set to some kickass FKA Twigs. Do whatever you have to do to collect all those pieces of your authentic ideal self in one place. 

(Cause next week, we’re gonna start workin’ with ‘em)

If you don’t see it or are struggling to come up with answers that feel super revelatory, then just wait. The more you remain open to it, the more your subconscious will steadily fill in the gaps for you. 

One thing I know for sure in my decades of spiritual study is this: Unless one struggles with legit delusions of grandeur, we don’t see these visions of our ideal selves unless they are entirely, entirely possible. We won’t ever see ourselves in a way that we’re not capable of actually achieving. 

In fact, the visions we tend to dismiss as unrealistic fantasies are often loving attempts by our higher selves to enlist us in the creation of our greatest destinies. 

(And yes, I know…we all just immediately thought of that one person who sees themselves as a total pop icon even though they’re actually incredibly tone-deaf. 

But then again, we also all know Erika Jayne and Rebecca Black (OMG, btw, have you HEARD her new song? It’s actually pretty fucking good), so actually, who are we to say…?)

See, What Had Happened Was…

Time for the actual update portion of this newsletter…

Oh my gosh, do you babies remember all the stuff I said in last week’s Weekly Update about how I was going to start setting routines and working out every day in my quest for better self-mastery??? 

Well, guess what??

I didn’t do it! 

Like, AT ALL! 

I just legit failed this week - there’s no other way to say it. I went soft on my self-mastery and lost focus, and it sucked. 

But a few days ago I started leaning back into it, and I feel 10x better. One of the best things I’ve done in the last few months was build wellness touchpoints throughout my day…tiny little acts that are so simple but make me feel like I’m really taking care of myself when I do them. Super hot showers, restorative yoga through the Peloton app, a Vital Proteins Blueberry Moon Milk Collagen Latte right before bed…these are the things that make me want to stick to my routines when I’ve fallen out of them. 

Currently, though, I’m struggling with trying to figure out how to possibly fit everything I want to do into my day. When I think of it in big picture terms, I have 17 waking hours at my disposal every single day…that’s a LOT! But when I sit down and start plotting stuff out in my daily calendar, it starts to feel like I only have two free hours to work on all my goals. 

So I’m playing with it. I don’t wanna spend another whole paragraph on the trials and tribulations of my daily schedule, though, so just know that I’m still determined to figure out how to integrate that mind-body connection into my daily routines. 

I also spent this weekend getting suuuuper clear on some REALLY big goals I want to work on this year (I turned 42 on Saturday!). I’ll be telling you all about them in the next couple weeks, and seriously, babies, it is going to be a wild, fun ride this year. If you wanna hear about it before I get to it in the BWE process, you can subscribe to the Secret Sharing Circle here: 

Subscribe Here

What I’ve Been Digging This Week:

ECO YOGA BOLSTER

Last week I mentioned I would share the gorg new yoga tools I bought to encourage more restorative practice. This was one of them. It’s so beautiful, babies…the color (I got the Amethyst, pictured above), the suede-like fabric, the gold embossing…and best of all, it’s super eco friendly. 

And yes, the above photo is totally how I look when I use it, too!

BLUEBERRY MOON MILK COLLAGEN LATTE

I am the kind of person who ideally should be in bed with the lights out two hours before I actually want to fall asleep. Which is not something I EVER want to do! So I started drinking this collagen latte before bed to help me turn off my brain and fall asleep as soon as possible. I swear to god - I will suck this thing down and 15 minutes later, I’m conked out. A kind warning that the taste is not for everyone: I actually really like it, but apparently a lot of other people hate it! So check out the strawberry flavor if that makes you nervous. 

PURE OXYGEN RADIANT GLOW MOISTURE INFUSION

I LOVE Beauty Pie. I recently ordered this moisturizer, and babies…you know when a lotion or moisturizer just feels good to put on? Like so good that you can’t wait to drench your skin in it again? That’s what this moisturizer is like. I’ve also noticed an actual difference in how smooth and glowy my skin looks since I’ve started using it, which is a huge bonus.

OKAY BYE

Alright! Now that I’ve successfully written my 2nd novel in the form of this newsletter, I’m gonna make like the Bloodhound Gang in No Hard Feelings and wrap this up.

Until next week…

-AC

I once sold Chrissy Teigen a 13K bottle of wine (Week 12, February 3, 2021)

J/K. I just like being a part of things, especially when they’re on Twitter. 

One of my big goals in January was to build more consistency when it comes to sending out these weekly newsletters. I spent hours working on an update that would take you through the first part of my BWE process…but the concept is pretty lofty, so it ended up taking so much time that I was either going to have to send out a half-baked post, or scrap it in favor of a quickly written, “Here’s the high points of the week” type newsletter. 

But then I scrapped both of those ideas, because the last thing I want to do is send out something that doesn’t have a lot of value. When you signed up for these updates, you invited me to be a guest in your inbox, and I take that pretty seriously. I don’t want these newsletters to just be a box that I check, because that’s like someone talking at a dinner party just to talk: It’s annoying and also pretty rude, and nobody’s excited to invite that person to their next party.

I’ve also started to take this approach to the Daily Updates, choosing to give an update on the BWE Close Friends IG Stories if I don’t have a ton to talk about, or am still needing time to really write out what I’m working through. And it’s actually been really fun, to sort of switch mediums that way. Keeps it fresh.

This is all to say: It’s my goal to send out a weekly newsletter that is fun, entertaining, and has some value…whether I’m updating you on my journey or sharing some of the things I’ve learned that could potentially help you on your journey. 

But if that’s not possible, then I’ll skip a week and give you some of that precious email inbox space back! Or I’ll just update you on stuff on the BWE IG Stories, which I want to start using more, anyway!

Onward:

January was pretty epic: The last time I remember feeling this good about both the start of the year and the way I stuck to my goals was probably back in 2014, when I started a strict Candida protocol and then blogged about it every day. The thing I always forget when I’m stuck in my perfectionistic procrastination “we’ve gotta build a very intricate strategy over the next year before we even START doing this thing” rut is that it’s the actual doing of the thing that gives me the most satisfaction. 

And on that end, a quick summary: 

In January, I launched @AmberL.Carter, a personal writing project that chronicles my life story on IG. I also relaunched Making It Magic, my intuitive reading/channeling business. I sent out the first newsletter in about a year to my Amber L. Carter dot com subscribers to update them on the moves above. I gave notice to my apt. management company that I would be moving out March 31, and I became a marketing partner (i.e., I’m not longer a contractor through a recruiting company, but a sole proprietor in my own right) to Target Corp. 

I mastered the art of building a morning routine, but am still working on sticking to one. I have learned, over the course of this month, just how much my morning routine focuses the rest of my day. If I’m feeling off-track, unfocused, or scattered, it’s probably because I skipped a few steps in the routine. 

I really loved working out with the Peloton App in the beginning of the month and even started to look forward to it. However, I also noticed how I was juuuust starting to slip back into using working out as a way to clean up messes made from disordered eating. So I switched my focus instead to a daily calorie count that wasn’t restrictive, but would still encourage me to be thoughtful about what I was putting into my body. Just by doing this, I shed a little more than 10 pounds. I did go off the rails with emotional eating a few days in January, notably when I was at my most anxious. However, unlike in the past when I would let those days turn into a week and then a month, etc, I didn’t let it defeat me, and quickly routed myself back to eating in a way that helps me feel really good.

A lot of the things above were accomplished with the mindset that I wanted to create massive positive change in my life, every single day. For years I’ve been longing for my life to change in some big, exciting way, but I haven’t actually done anything to help bring about those adventurous changes. So in January, I decided that if I wanted my life to change, I had to change my energy first. That required taking big leaps, releasing old stories, and starting things before I felt I was ready. 

Doing this also required that I was constantly on point when it came to being on top of all the various tasks I was juggling. Sometimes I felt really great at this…other times I felt like my head was about go underwater. The tricky thing I noticed was that just one day of missing a thing here or there made me feel like the whole tower of cards was about to fall. Yet this actually didn’t bother me the way it might have in the past. Instead of using it as a recrimination for why I can never keep up, I’m not consistent, I don’t pay enough attention to the details, etc, I simply recognized that I needed to build better self-mastery in order to continue to support myself in all the things I want to do.

So that’s going to be my focus for this month: Continue to making massive positive change in my life every day, whilst building the self-mastery to support it. 

If you’re a person who knows a shit-ton about astrology, me telling you that my South Node is in Pisces and my North Node is in Virgo will tell you everything you need to know about this. 

For people who don’t know about astrology, I’ll break it down this way: To say that I have a propensity to want to sort of drift through my days on a daydream is not even remotely an exaggeration. 

I’ve gained a lot of treasure from this tendency - my ability to immediately connect to spirit, my rich imagination, my sense of empathy, and my determination to build and keep more freedom in my life - but it has also caused a lot of dysfunction and dissociation.

Living in my head a lot isn’t good for me, because I’m either living inside old painful memories - which causes those memories to live longer in my body + replicate more painful memories - or I’m tucking into fantasies as a way to avoid the discomfort of the present moment. 

Yet I’m learning that the present moment won’t ever become more comfortable for me until I focus on actually PARTICIPATING in creating a better present moment for myself!! 

So. 

Self-mastery covers building + sticking to routines (particularly a morning and evening one); setting clear, definable goals and objectives for what I want to create and achieve; creating a daily schedule for myself that supports those routines and goals; eliminating escapism through addictive behaviors and dissociation; building better health + wellness through mindful eating and a daily workout that helps me to stay present in my own body; and working to release old stories and negative memory-dives by mastering my thoughts. 

So, how does all of this actually pertain to self-worth, exactly? 

A couple months ago, I would answer this question, “It probably doesn’t!” But what I’ve learned from working on building routines this past month is that it’s surprising how quickly that builds my self-esteem. Even things as basic as taking a shower every day (I learned recently that skipping showers and other basic hygiene habits is actually quite common among people who have experienced the kind of trauma that caused them to dissociate from their bodies. Which honestly makes SO much sense) starts to give you a boost because it becomes an act of caring for yourself. 

I used to think of routine and set habits as this structure of rigidity that would prevent me from fully enjoying my day, and would also inevitably get smashed to pieces by the unpredictability of life, anyway - like, what happens when I go on vacation? What if I’m staying a friends’ house and they want to go watch the sun rise? What if I have a guy sleeping over? - so what even was the point???

More and more, though, I’m seeing how good routine is for me, and rather than be rigid, it’s actually become quite comforting. I want to stick to them, because when I do so, I’m more well-rested, I’m centered and grounded, I feel less anxious, and my skin looks fucking great.

So there’s that, and then there’s the fact that these self-mastery items will also force myself to be largely present throughout my day. When I’m fully present, I’m not torturing myself with old, negative memories, nor am I defeating my potential by being sucked into escapist fantasies. 

Self-mastery also sets up structures that will support me, my well-being, and the things I want to achieve in life, thereby sending the inherent message that I’m worthy of the things I want. I’m always hesitant to talk too much about goals and habits because I don’t want this to turn into a brosef “The 5 AM Morning” type thing, but by setting clearly defined goals and objectives, I’m setting myself up for success and giving myself the opportunity to make my dreams real. That’s a HUGE act of self-love. 

So that’s where we’re at in February! I also have an auxiliary goal of using my BWE IG more, which is an ongoing goal that I still haven’t mastered, but I have the feeling that once I just get in the habit of using it all the time, it will become second nature. So I’m gonna keep trying!!! 

Want the behind-the-scenes run-down on my daily progress with this project? Join the Secret Sharing Circle for Daily Updates filled with insights, revelations, and learnings I don’t talk about with anyone else! (Seriously…I don’t like to brag OR use the word “juicy” as an adjective, but…stuff gets juicy in the Daily Updates). 

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See you next week!

-AC

Weekly Update: Weeks 1-3 // NOOM

The third and final tool that I was prepped to do for the first three weeks of this project was Noom.

And I struggled a lot with it. At first I liked that it was a tool where I could have a lot of little wins; little metrics like weigh myself every day, track my meals, and drink enough water were easy enough boxes to tick off every day. But I also found myself in a cycle of half-assing it, then proclaiming that I was recommitting and going deeper, and then gradually going to back to half-assing it again. 

Part of the problem was that, beyond giving me small ways to keep promises to myself, I knew that Noom wasn’t really doing anything for me in terms of building my self-worth. Noom really markets the shit out of the fact that there’s a lot of psychology and behavior modification built into the app, and while that’s obviously really helpful, none of that was really going to get to the heart of what I already knew were my deepest issues surrounding my body, which were emotional eating and subconscious weight protection as a coping mechanism for past trauma. 

Basically: The body really DOES keep the score, babies.

For instance, I had quite a big revelation last week that I shared with the Club: There’s a thought exercise that’s often helpful to do when you’re sifting sift through blocks and you need to figure out what might be going down below: You simply imagine yourself waking up the next morning suddenly having that thing you so desperately want, and you ask yourself what you’re afraid of now that you have it. I did this last week, imagining myself waking up tomorrow to discover that all the extra weight had magically dropped off overnight and I was back in my most healthiest body. 

I’ve done this thought experiment before, but the answer was always a little hazy or defiantly stubborn (“Nothing, my life is perfect is now”). But this time, I allowed myself to really breath into it and let go of the rising panic, fear, and gradual mental black-out that always accompanied any deep inquiry surrounding my body. 

What was I afraid of now? The answer was stark and, to my surprise, almost immediate: That I would run right out and start dating again, which would obviously be a disaster because I still couldn’t trust myself to not get tricked into another toxic relationship with yet another waking nightmare of a man. 

I mean. 

If that isn’t the most crystal-clear answer for why I’ve steadily packed on more than 100 pounds since my last relationship ended four years ago…? 

Like. 

FUCK. 

So then what do I do about it? This question has floated around me since that revelation. I’ve been doing some searching, but don’t have what feels like the perfect answer to that yet. However, I DO know that Noom sure as fuck is not the tool that’s gonna help me figure it out.

So for now, I’m going to drop Noom (and will be trying to not think about the hefty membership fee I already paid for it) and start winding my way through the work of Geneen Roth, starting with Breaking Free From Emotional Eating. I’ve skimmed the book before, but it was in one of those phases where I was sort of subconsciously and wildly looking for a quick fix, so I didn’t really digest a lot of it. I like Roth’s work and she’s a favorite of Oprah’s, so I’m hoping that by committing myself to this book the way I’ve committed to Pathway and WSABM, I’ll gain some traction in this historically muddy and painful part of my self-worth. 

So what’s next? 

Right now I’m working on a post that will take us through the metrics I’ll be using in order to measure whether or not any of this work is even, well, working. I’m also working on building in a system of more daily accountability per the IG Stories and updates: As I get further into this work and the metrics mentioned above, there’s going to be certain stuff that I’m going to have to push and challenge myself to do in order to see some growth. Think ‘80s sports training montage, but with a lot more complaining and whining and zero sports! 

So yeah. Three weeks, babies. I don’t know if I’ve been consistent on the daily with anything for three weeks. This is the big time! And yet, I feel like I’ve barely even scratched the surface. 

See you next week! 

Your friend, etc,

AC

Weekly Update: Weeks 1-3 // WSABM

The next big chunk of my Big Worth Energy work for the last three weeks was from the We Should All Be Millionaires Club (WSABM). 

While the Pathway is the daily tool that slowly addresses almost every single area of self-worth at different times, WSABM is a very specific tool to help me build up my self-worth when it comes to career and wealth. It’s a huge leap for me to even publicly admit that I’m *in* the Club and *want* to be a millionaire, because there’s so much past shame and embarrassment around wanting + going after big things and then feeling shamed and mocked for it by people who either don’t think I can make those things happen for myself and/or think that I shouldn’t even want the big things that I do. 

But I DO want big things, and I DO want to a millionaire, and I no longer give one single shit what anyone else thinks about that. And so, at the end of August I joined the Club, knowing that if anyone could help me get there, it was gonna be Rachel Rodgers and her working team of badass women. 

When I joined, I anticipated that I would get acquainted with the Club while I was still working on Fall National with Target and then I’d fully dive in when that project wrapped around the middle of September. Instead, I sort of half-assed my way through the Worthy workshop and waited it out until I hit the 30 day mark of my membership, when Glow Up - the workshop that was all about taking your business to the next level - opened up for me. I had my sights set on the $10K in 10 Days Challenge that was kicking off in November, and told myself that I would use October to fully immerse myself in Glow Up, and then use the $10K Challenge to really jump fully into growing my intuitive reading biz and finish 2020 out super strong. 

Except that’s not at all what happened! Instead, October ended up being a wash, and I decided that what I needed most was to use the $10K motivational push to launch this project instead. This wasn’t (and isn’t) a money-making initiative, I didn’t build a huge scalable offer around it, and I wasn’t using it to teach myself that I could make money on demand…but it WAS a way for me to take a big, audacious, put-myself-out-there, stop-wasting-time-getting-ready leap, which was a huge part of the Challenge and huge for me, personally. 

I tried doing an IG Purge Sale in conjunction with the $10K Challenge, thinking it would be a nifty way for me to close out a former side biz (Pop Rocks Vintage) whilst also making some extra dough…but that was a massive failure. It took SO much of my time and energy to organize and upload all of that stuff to my IG; I lost at least 10 followers during the Sale (which hurt a little extra because, before that happened, I was thisclose to hitting a benchmark); and out of my almost-700 followers, only one person bought something. This sad trombone of a sale brought up a lot of old stuff for me, mostly around old scarcity thought patterns: People don’t like buying from me; people don’t like supporting me; I’m just annoying people when I try to sell something; why is it so easy for this person or that person but so hard for me…

Which is all just mind trash. The truth is, I DO have a lot of friends who won’t go out of their way to share/Like/comment or support anything I do, no matter how important it is or how easy I make it for them. And I also have friends and followers who have enjoyed endless support from me - energetic, monetary, and even emotional - but who wouldn’t even make the effort to download one of my books when they were FREE.

And I used to take that personally. REALLY personally!! And I took it personally for a few days this time, too! But then I took it to the Club and talked it over with a couple of friends who are also helming their own things, and I realized that, well, fuck: No matter how fun or funny or cool or interesting I make a thing, those people are never going to be thosekinds of people. Lots of other people who are currently in my orbit are also never going to be those kinds of people. They didn’t follow me because they were hoping that someday I’d be selling a book they could buy or launching a reading biz they could support: They followed me because they’re either people from HS who hate-watch my stuff or they’re old blog readers who just want me to entertain them or they’re friends and acquaintances who feel like they have to follow me because that’s just what we do when it comes to social media. 

And all of that is fine! It’s totally, totally fine. NOW it’s fine. A few months ago? It would NOT have been fine! But that’s progress, right? A lot of stuff with this project might be a little slow-going - and we haven’t even started talking about metrics or measurements when it comes to figuring out if all this stuff is even working - but this kind of felt like my first big win! Instead of letting my disappointment spiral into a big-ass pity party, I felt annoyed for a day, vented to my pals on Marco Polo, took the next day off from doing anything with the IG Sale, and then quietly closed it out a couple days later and got back to focusing the bulk of my energy on this project. 

It was kind of a bummer to see all these other women in the Club making BANK with their businesses during the $10K Challenge, while I was like, “…but I’m making bank on my self-development!!!”, and I didn’t really come out of the Challenge feeling like I really gave it my all…but I also know that focusing primarily on this project was the right move for me.

Next time, though? I’m gonna fuckin’ KILL it. 

I’m still working my way through the Worthy workshop. It’s a LOT of workbook stuff (or, as they say in the Club, werkbook™) which I still don’t really love, plus it takes sooooo much time, which makes me loathe it even more. Yet I do have to admit that the workbook is doing what it’s supposed to be doing, which is forcing me to reflect on a lot of things that I would usually dismiss or ignore. Today was the first day of a two-week Time Study module, which should be interesting??? I hate tracking my time, because I also hate being confronted with the possibility of how much of it I’m probably wasting by scrolling through Tik Tok, and like with most things in my life, I would much prefer to live in my own ignorant bliss than have to face the consequences of my actions!!!

But I’m doing it. I’m going to keep moving through the Worthy workshop while I’m doing the Time Study, though, because I do have other things I want to launch this month and I’m hoping Glow Up can hold my hand through all that. Also, the Club is ex-pen-sive and your girl also needs to make enough money to keep me in pine scented candles and fantasy novels until the end of the holidays, so I’ve got work to do! 

Check out the next couple of posts for the weekly updates on the work I’ve been doing with the We Should All Be Millionaires Club and Noom, and if you’d like to become a member of the Big Worth Energy Super Secret Members-Only Club, where you get daily updates filled with way more deep and intimate details of this work, you can do so here!

That’s it for now! See you at the next post!

Your friend, etc.

AC

Weekly Update: Weeks 1-3 // Pathway

Hellooooooo from the other side! 

Yes, I know that’s not the lyrics to this song, but just go with it, mmmkay?

Today is Day 21 of the Big Worth Energy project, which means I’ve officially been doing this work for three weeks! 

And since this is the first weekly update, that means I’ve got three whole weeks of stuff to catch you up on! Aren’t you excited?! 

My intention was to send out a weekly update every…well, week. The truth is, I’ve been focusing so hard on keeping up with the daily work and writing + sending out the daily updates for the Super Secret Members-Only Club (SSMOC) that taking time out to write a massive weekly update post felt a bit too overwhelming. Also, by the time the first week anniversary had rolled around, I had already done, processed, and shared so much with the SSMOC that it felt even more overwhelming to try and sum up everything into one tidy post. Turns out that I was right when I predicted that the stuff shared in the SSMOC would go super deep…after only a week or two, the members of the SSMOC already knew me better than literally anyone else in the world. 

But, finally, here’s a rundown of what the first three weeks of Big Worth Energy has looked like: 

After publishing the intro post for this project, I locked right into doing Lacy Phillips’ program The Pathway every single day, jumping into the workshop Unblocked Inner Child. For the uninitiated, Pathway workshops primarily consist of journal questions and a guided hypnotic mediation that focuses on deep-seated memories and subconscious beliefs related to a certain topic. Unblocked Inner Child is all about your childhood and adolescence. I’ve done this workshop before, but sort of glossed my way through it…I don’t love going through memories of my childhood, and any stuff about the “inner child” usually gives me the heebie-jeebies. I didn’t like being a kid when I was a kid: All I wanted to do was grow up and be an adult and have power over my life and decisions and choices, so continually going back to that place where I felt small, powerless, misunderstood and unprotected is really agitating for me. 

Which turns out, is kind of the point! The guided meditations are called “Deep Imaginings” (DI’s) in the Pathway lexicon, and the ones where you experience the most agitation - i.e, the ones that bring up the most uncomfortable memories, scenarios, or feelings - are often the ones where you need the most reprogramming. Which means that you need to keep doing them over and over again, replacing/reimagining those agitating memories or feelings with scenarios where you get exactly what you needed in those moments so that you can basically remap those neuropathways in your brain. You know you’ve been successful with reprogramming when, instead of feeling agitated, you feel quite the opposite - a sense of relief or release. 

While it was literally the opposite of fun, I made a commitment to really jump into this workshop and give it my all. I answered every single journal question (even though I HATE answering journal or workbook questions) and did every single DI. Some of it was cool, like when you’d start to literally feel a warm or soothing sensation in your body. Some of it was really frustrating and annoying, and those were the times when I would make a mark and acknowledge that I was probably going to have to do that DI over and over again until it wasn’t frustrating and annoying…which made it even MORE frustrating and annoying! 

But I made it through, and right now I’m currently focusing on reprogramming the DI’s that caused me the most agitation. I’ve successfully reprogrammed one agitating one already, and working on the second one. But, the bad news is that, even when I’m done reprogramming the agitating DI’s, it doesn’t mean I’m done with the workshop forever. According to literally everyone who’s interacted with the Pathway and had some success with it, it’s a good idea to go back and do Unblocked Inner Child about every three months. So even after I’m able to move onto other, more exciting workshops, I’ll still have to revisit Inner Child from time to time. The work, as they say, is never truly done. Which blows! I love being 100% completely done with work! 

Howeva: Since I’m currently working on repeating and reprograming the agitating DI’s from Inner Child, that frees up a lot of time that was usually spent on the journal questions. Since Phillips recommends that you repeat those DI’s at least 6-7 times, that means I have a few more weeks before I move onto another workshop. But that’s also the perfect opportunity to catch up some of the intro stuff I skipped over in the interest of jumping right into the first workshop at the start of this project. I’ll be talking more about that more in a later post, but I’m excited to add that into my daily regimen, even if only to mix it up.

Check out the next post for the rest of the weekly update per the work I’ve been doing with the We Should All Be Millionaires Club and Noom. If you’d like to become a member of the Big Worth Energy Super Secret Members-Only Club - where you get daily updates filled with way more deep and intimate details of this work - you can do so here! 

That’s it for now! See you at the next post!

Your friend, etc.

AC

It's about trying to find that Big D*ck Energy, but without all the d*cks

1. SELF-OBSERVATION

It was 2007/2008, and I was working at a behavioral therapy clinic for kids on the spectrum. “I hope you don’t take it as a hint,” my boss, Keri, laughed, as she handed me an audiobook called Maximum Confidence: Extreme Self-Esteem. “But I got a lot out of listening to this and I think you will, too.” 

I immediately registered the title as being unbearably cheesy, but nonetheless, I still slipped the first disc into my car’s CD player during my long urban commute home from North St. Paul to North Minneapolis. As Golden Hour began drenching the Minneapolis skyline in its sundown glow, I crossed the 94 bridge and listened as Jack spoke how low self-esteem was basically the root of the world’s problems. It made sense! If everyone had a high sense of authentic self-worth, people wouldn’t feel the need to act like such dicks. I mean, that’s just science, baby! 

But then he made it personal. He started talking about how, if the state of your life is less than what you want it to be, that’s all directly related to your self-worth…that people settle for mediocre because they don’t believe they’re worthy of their dreams, and thus aren’t willing to do what it takes to achieve them. 

Parking my car in front of my house, I sat there and let those words sink in. The current state of my life was definitely less than what I truly wanted for myself. I was living in a cold, dark murder basement in North Minneapolis, and while the rent was laughably cheap, I was paid so little at my full-time job that I was at least a few months in the hole with my friend/landlord. Every time I got paid, I would think about that scene in Roseanne where Dan complained about their bills and how he didn’t even need to get ahead, he just wanted to break even: I was always so in the hole that most of that new paycheck went to paying off overdraft fees and filling up my gas tank for the long commute to work and back in my shitty car. That was another point of shame for me: Thanks to a hit by a distracted driver and a mid-winter car break-in, my formerly beautiful vehicle was now a piece of junk with a hole in the back window that I couldn’t afford to fix. You might think getting second job was the answer, but - thanks to the debilitating depression I was refusing to acknowledge - I was already having such a hard time functioning at my first one that I felt like adding to that load would only result in losing both. I constantly struggled with my weight (though now I look back and think…babe. You were SO thin back then!!!) but was also nutritionally starving thanks to only being able to afford Lean Cuisines and bologna sandwiches, and it probably didn’t help that I also smoked (Marlboro Lights, because the Lights were so much healthier) and poured beer down my gullet every chance I got. I hadn’t had a meaningful relationship in at least 2 years at that point, and most of the guys I had dated since moving to Minneapolis turned out be either total choads or troubling messes (more than me, even!). I really wanted to be a writer and I had a popular blog, but I had supreme imposter’s syndrome when it came to submitting pieces or applying for writing jobs (I hadn’t finished college, and literally every writing job was like, “Bachelor’s or GTFO!”). So while I regularly sunk my heart and soul into my writing, I couldn’t see how it could ever really dig me out of the hole I was in.

Which is all to say: I knew the kind of life I wanted, the kind of life I dreamed about…but frankly, right then it all felt sort of impossible. I was basically just waiting for someone to come along and save me, to drop all these opportunities into my lap, and then all my dreams could come true! After all, achieving them on my own? Moi? I could barely go a full week at work without calling in “sick” (i.e., sick of having to get out of bed and be a functional adult).

The idea that all of my problems and dirtbag life situations were the result of low self-esteem felt…not great. I didn’t really know who to blame my problems on, but I sure as fuck didn’t wanna blame them on me! I also couldn’t relate to the labels of “insecure” or “self-esteem.” To me, people who were insecure or had low self-esteem were either painfully shy wallflowers, little weasels who always followed the crowd, or arrogant bullies trying to compensate for something. I wasn’t a person who constantly looked for the validation of others: I was confident in who I was, I was a leader at work, well-liked in most social situations, and if you had asked me at the time, I would have told you that I really liked myself.

But looking back, I can see that I just didn’t get it…and it would take years before I really would.

Song: Once In a Lifetime, Talking Heads 

Months later, on a long walk around the Lake of the Isles, I listened to Canfield talk about how certain people will always be rich because they simply, truly believe that they deserve to be rich. Even if they lose all their money, they’ll always make it back again…because that’s just the level of existence their subconscious is most comfortable in.

Most people, however, are the opposite: Whether they realize it or not, there’s a certain amount of money they’ll never surpass in earning or saving. If they ever happen to go over that amount, the surplus will always “disappear” somehow, either through frivolous spending or an unexpected bill. This is because, subconsciously, these people don’t believe they deserve to be rich. They can’t be *trusted* to be rich, or - more to the point - they can’t trust themselves to stay rich. So no matter how hard they work or how much extra money they make, eventually they’ll always find themselves right back where they started. It’s the exact reason why we see so many lottery winners bouncing back to the poverty line only five years after their big win: Their subconscious mindset never quite caught up to their newly flush bank accounts.

Fun, right? 

Listening to Canfield explain this, I started thinking about the women from The Real Housewives of The OC and Kristin Cavallari from The Hills (remember, this was still back in 2007/2008) and how, no matter what they did, women like that somehow always ended up with the nicest cars and the most amazing houses and the hottest boyfriends. It was easy to see that they felt they deserved that kind of lifestyle, but when you stopped looking at it as delusion or entitlement, you could tell that it was simply a difference of self-worth. They felt and believed, to their core, that they were worth that luxury convertible, that Malibu beach house, that hot pro football player. And since the universe is gonna universe, it proved them right.

I, on the other hand, had a really hard time believing I was only worth a shitty basement apartment, a laughable paycheck, and a beat-up car. I knew I was capable of more. I kept telling myself everything was going to get better, it *had* to get better…except, that, I wasn’t really doing anything to actually make it better. 

And that, my friends, is when The Law of Attraction swooped in and saved me from having to do any of the actual work! 

The thing is, deep down I suspected Maximum Confidence was right. Even though I still didn’t relate to the concept of having “low self-esteem”, I was open to the idea that it might be the answer to my problems. Yet the thing I couldn’t figure out was what to *do* about it. The concept felt so abstract and wispy, and the best advice I could find was to take risks, put myself out there, and go *for* rejection…then every time I succeeded, my self-esteem would improve! 

The only thing is, if you have low self-esteem, then taking risks, putting yourself out there, and going for rejection are the absolute last things you want to do!!! 

So instead, I started reading everything Jack Canfield, including The Secret, and I decided that this Law of Attraction stuff was a much easier solution: Simply mediate, visualize, change your mindset, and manifest! I just had to tell the universe my coffee order, and then sit back and wait for it to appear! 

And yes, I 100% chose to ignore all the “and then take massive action!” tenets that came after the whole mindset thing. What about small actions, instead? What about tiny preparations that would get me ready to take a lil’ bit of action?! What if I just told the universe that once it gave me the thing, then I would take action on it? Like, give me an agent first, and then I’ll have no choice but to finish that novel! I mean, makes total sense to me!!!!

And the thing is, The Law of Attraction did work…at least for some thing. When I had to move out of the place I now refer to as the House of Pain (the home I lived in after I moved out of the murder basement), I manifested a beautiful apt of my own. When I got back into a corner and suddenly quit the low-paying behavioral therapy job I'd been so unhappy in, I got an offer to join a start-up that very night. When I decided I was ready to manifest a soulmate, he showed up in my life almost immediately. When I and that soulmate later broke up in spectacular fashion and I had to move out of our shared place and build a whole new life for myself, even through my heartbreak (or because of it) I managed to quickly manifest a ridiculously amazing apt, a lucrative new gig, and a new creative project. 

And yet. 

And yet. 

The thing is, no matter how many big things I managed to manifest in my life, I always somehow, eventually, ended up at the same level I was at before. Instead of Kristen Cavallari, I was the lottery winner/loser. Even when I managed to manifest something truly great like a fantastic apt, eventually I would end up downgrading to another rented room/basement situash. When I landed a great gig, there would still somehow be weeks or even months of struggle while I waited to get paid or anxiously stood by while the assignment was delayed. Even the soulmate ended up being a crystal clear example of this really great thing that eventually blew up because I just wasn’t yet in the right mental or emotional place for it. 

The worst part of all of this? Instead of life steadily getting better, I was starting to feel like it was only getting more and more substandard. 

2. CLARITY OF THOUGHT

The realization was always brought on by what I call a “Jump-in-the-Matrix” moment. You know the one. The kind where something in your consciousness shifts and you find yourself suddenly taking a look around and wondering, “Wait…I live here? I’m dating THIS guy? And working THIS job?! In THIS town?!? Have I just been asleep for the last 5 years? How the FUCK did this happen??!”

You realize that the day-to-day has slowly lulled you into a sort of “good enough” complacency. You need something in a pinch; this is what you can afford right now; this is the easiest option; the pay isn’t great but it’s better than nothing. It’s not the best you can do - *nothing* in your life is the best you can do - but you tolerate your surroundings and circumstances with a sort of blind, willful ignorance because setting higher standards and holding out for better requires energy you just don’t have and action you don’t want to take.

Until one day, you finally wake up to that conscious moment and realize that, if the soap operas are true and you’ve only got one life to live, then this shit? Is fuckin’ mediocre. The sands are indeed running through the hourglass, but these? These are not the kind of days you want reppin’ your life.

So what do you do? When you have that “WTF is THIS shit?” life moment, I mean…what do you actually do about it? 

If you’re like me, you’ll boldly decide that you’ll do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to change all of your life circumstances. Any plan, any book, any declaration…you’re willing to jump in feet first and do all of it if there’s even a faint promise that you won’t have to live this kind of woefully inadequate, bullshit life much longer.

And you might even stick to it! For a few days, maybe a week, maybe even two weeks. 

And then shit gets hard, there’s a Harry Potter marathon on TV, a new seasonal kind of Oreos in your cupboard, and you just…sort of…

Give up. 

Go back to your old ways again. 

Lull yourself back to that unconscious, “What, this? This is fine!” state of being again. 

And resume making decisions for your life that always tippy-touch the bar of “good enough”, but almost never rise above it. 

Song: Start by Ellie Goulding

I’ve been here a thousand times before. I’ve even written this exact same type of post before. More than once, even! 

But lately, it’s just been getting worse. Now, instead of those Jumps-in-the-Matrix moments being a once-in-a-while thing, it’s become once-a-day. 

The big reckoning happened almost a year ago. A past love reappeared into my life again, and I found myself looking around at my life and thinking…I can’t show him this. Some people are medicine; others are measuring sticks. For half my life, he’s been both. Measuring sticks, though, hold themselves to a certain kind of standard. And when you’re right in front of them, it begins to dawn on you that you don’t have those same standards for yourself, and you begin to wonder why that is.

How did I even get here? When did I stop caring about my own life? On the outside, I live a life of comfort and privilege: I have a safe, comfortable, and affordable apartment; I own a reliable vehicle outright; I have disposable income; and there are people in my life who love and care about me.

I’m grateful for those things, and when I’m floating through the day-to-day, life is fine, everything's good. But then I’ll have those moments where I wake up, and the contrast from where I want to be - where I thought I would be - and where I am is stark, even painful. 

Anyone who’s known me or read my stuff for a substantial amount of time knows that I’ve got some really big dreams for my life…but I’m still nowhere near to accomplishing them. The fact that I just cannot seem to get the fuck out of my own way has caused me a lot of pain. I haven’t really done anything I’ve set out to do. I haven’t even accomplished my most minor of goals. Instead my quality of life getting better, it’s actually getting worse. Two years ago I took a baseline of all the areas of my life and then put a reminder a year from that date to do another baseline to see where my life had improved. The next year, you know how many areas had improved? Zero. About half the areas had even gotten worse, with one or two plummeting in comparison. 

I was miserable, and I was turning into a loser. Worse, I was turning into that loser who talks a big game to all her friends about all the things she’s going to do, and then five years later she still hasn’t done any of them. What was wrong with me?? Why couldn’t I stick to any of my goals or the promises I had made to myself? Even the medicine measuring stick man coming back into my life didn’t seem to be enough motivation to turn things around. 

The most painful part was that I was so, so tired of always starting again, always starting over. Of always making plans to transform my life: New life, new me. Sometimes I’d cry from the frustration of it, wondering why I couldn’t seem to ever really change, to ever really get my life together. It felt like I was constantly battling with myself, with this shitty little monster inside of me that just wouldn’t let me succeed. The sneaky jerk that didn’t want me to win; it wanted to sit on the couch and order Postmates and posts memes to IG Stories and just think about how cool it would be to live the kind of life I wanted for myself, instead of actually living it. I was stuck in the self-improvement version of Groundhog’s Day, losing time while the life I really wanted for myself was just passing me by. No more new beginnings, I’d tearfully beg in my meditations, whilst asking the universe for help. No more fresh starts. I don’t want to need them anymore. I want this to be it, the final time I begin anew…when it all actually sticks, and for good.

Pretty depressing stuff, right? Yeah, it’s been a real drag! So has been spending thousands of dollars and countless hours on therapy; journaling so much that I started developing a gag reflex when confronted with anything relating to self-reflection; and embarking on countless projects where I attempted to make new rules for my life, set big goals, and build better habits. All of which seemingly changed nothing.

And you wanna know why? Because none of it went deep enough.

Song: When I Wasn’t Watching by Mandy Moore

Last year, a few months after I had the “and now I feel like all of my after-school commitments are just not good enough” Clueless moment, I stumbled upon another startling revelation about self-worth…which was that I didn’t have any!

The revelation was three-fold: There was this new manifestation expert making the rounds on all the self-improvement podcasts, and while she touted herself as having a method that was “well…radically different” from other leading manifestation experts, a lot of what she based her methods on were similar to Neville Goddard’s work back in the ‘50s and Canfield’s assertions in Maximum Confidence. I also started following The Holistic Psychologist on Instagram, and trust me when I tell you that even just 5 of her posts were worth more than some of the thousands of dollars I had previously spent in therapy.

Finally, I got it. When I began to take a deeper look at my life, the choices I was making, and then the subconscious beliefs that were leading me to make those choices…holy shit, you nerds. No WONDER my life was a mess! OF COURSE I kept failing when it came to setting new habits and achieving new goals…I was never going to succeed at the stuff I wanted to accomplish, simply because my incredibly low self-worth wouldn’t allow it. There was a sneaky little bastard tripping me up the whole time: It was called self-betrayal, and that jerk had its roots dug down deep into the middle earth of my sense of worth (hashtag rhymes, hashtag poet).

Luckily for me, this time things were different - instead of suspecting that low self-esteem might be the problem but not really knowing what to actually do about it, I had all these tools popping up around me that, or once, actually addressed this issue in a concrete, actionable way. Some of it was based on psychology, some of it was based on neuroscience and epigenetics, and some of it was based on spiritual concepts. 

Over the past year, I’ve tried out some of these tools, attempting to remedy my low self-worth situash on my own. However, while I’ve made some key discoveries and have had some important revelations, I haven’t really experienced any concrete changes yet because I can’t seem to practice these tools with any modicum of consistency.

(Which, PS, is a symptom of low self-worth! Your low self-worth will literally do everything it can to prevent you from doing the things that will help you form high self-worth! I don’t make the rules! Your low self-worth does!) 

When I started to grow frustrated by my lack of consistency, I sat down and tried to figure out a fix. Looking back, I began to realize that the only time I’ve ever really stuck to anything for an extended amount of time is when I’ve shared about it on the daily to a blogging audience.

And that, my friends, is exactly why we’re here. 

3. DETACHMENT

Whilst I and my fragile ego would much prefer to make this a “I’ve completely changed myself, and now I’m going to teach YOU how to do the same!” transformational success story where I can be adorably honest about the loser I used to be because - surprise! - I’m actually not that person anymore, that’s just not where we’re at right now. I really wanted this to be that, and tried for a few months to get ahead of it, but again - I can’t seem to stick to things unless I have that built-in accountability that comes with putting myself out there. That’s just me being Miley. 

And, because there’s a lot of Virgo in my chart and I’m a trauma-filled fool who believes that all outside validation, affection, and admiration will instantly go away the minute I reveal myself to be even a little imperfect, I also really wanted to have a whole bunch of things in place before I even launched this project. And I still would very much like to do that, but I just can’t wait any longer or waste any more time trying to create a perfect start. 

So we’re jumping in. 

Big Worth Energy is a personal project focused on my intention to transform my life and achieve my biggest dreams by (first) reconstructing my sense of self-worth. And I’ll be doing it all in real time, right in front of your big beautiful eyes. Instead of being your huckleberry, I’m here to be your/my/our guinea pig.

So place your lily-soft hand in mine and prepare to come along with me as we embark on this fuckin’ journey towards some - you guessed it! - Big Worth Energy. 

Song: The Plan by Travis Scott 

Here’s how it’s going to work: 

I’m going to be implementing a few big tools into my life on a daily basis that will all help explore and build self-worth in some way. Some will focus on specific areas of my life, and some will focus on the big picture.  I used each of these tools on my own for varying lengths of time, and feel strongly that there’s some magic to their methods (however, my use of them for this project is not an explicit endorsement of them or their creators). However, since I've really only dipped my toes into the usage of these tools, I’m also incredibly curious to see what might happen if I did actually practice these tools on a consistent, daily basis. 

The current tools are as follows: 

Lacy Phillips’ The Pathway 2.0

Dr. Joe Dispenza’s Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself

Noom

We Should All Be Millionaires Club

The Gabriel Method’s Evening Meditation

Listen - I know some of you are going to look at the tools on this list and immediately scoff at a few of them, and that’s totally okay. Part of the reason why I want to make myself a guinea pig and see what happens if I do this stuff consistently is because I’m curious to see if some of these tools could actually work. I will also be explaining, at a later time, why I’ve been led to each one of these tools and why I’ve chosen to use them - and spoiler alert, I might actually be even more skeptical of them than you are - so for now, let’s just all put our fun and cute judgements on the shelf until later, mmmkay? 

I won’t be using ALL of these tools at the same time, and this list also does not include some of the tools that I’ll also be referencing or studying along the way, like @The.Holistic.Psychologist and other assorted books and teachings. Also, as I process through these tools and either learn everything I can from them or practice them to the point where they’re second nature, I’ll likely be switching out existing tools for new ones. I also have a whole list of books and courses related to this topic that I haven’t even touched yet, and part of the reason for that was because I wanted to wait until I could build this platform to share as I go. The best way I know how to really learn material is to talk/write about it and share it with others, and I’ve realized that a lot of these books would be a whole lot more fun to go through (for me, I mean. Maybe for you, too? I don’t know your life!) if I have a way to do that whilst also volunteering myself as tribute for all the practices and exercises that are often laid out in these types of books. 

There will be other, smaller habits and goals that I’ll be challenging myself with and putting into daily rotation. These will range from the obvious, like practicing the above tools every day, to the more tangible, like setting a writing goal or doing that thing I’ve been procrastinating forever on. 

Anyway, I guess what I’m saying is: Expect this project to morph and change as I morph and change! 

A lot of this work will involve healing past wounds, moving through fears that hold me back, setting boundaries, and keeping self-made promises. Which means a lot of it is probably going to get pretty deep and really, really personal…because it kind of has to in order to have any real effect, yeah? 

Which brings us to how I’m going to sharing this project, which is two-fold: 

1) I’ll be publicly sharing the big lessons of what I’m learning with weekly updates of my progress on a variety of platforms: On the blog, in the weekly Big Worth Energy Substack Newsletter, and on the @BigWorthEnergy Instagram account. Anyone can follow along, and if you like what you’re reading, I hope you’ll share it with your friends!

2) Along with this, there’s a behind-the-scenes Big Worth Energy Super Secret Members-Only Club (working title) that you can join for daily updates on progress and learnings.

Song: Yes I’m Changing by Tame Impala

Like I said above, I expect for a lot of this work to get really deep and personal. Which I am not very comfortable with! And when I say “not very” what I really mean is “not fucking AT ALL!” Sharing stuff like that directly works into some of my biggest, most present fears: Being vulnerable, creating intimacy, and being honest about the parts of myself that aren’t perfect. 

But again, I’ve gotta keep myself accountable, and that accountability includes documenting these parts of my journey. So I’ve decided to strike a balance and keep these things shareable while also creating a little bit of gatekeeping around it. 

Membership to the Big Worth Energy Super Secret Members-Only Club is - legit - less than two Venti Pumpkin Spice Lattes a month (and trust me, friend…I know the cost of a Venti Pumpkin Spice Latte), or you can pay for an annual membership and get 50% off. You can also become a Founding Member, which has some REALLY great benefits that range from I Don’t Know to Maybe You Just Wanna Give Me Money Because You Have Some & Are a Really Cool Person Like That. Most of the membership fees will go toward paying for the tools I’ll be using (some of it I’ll spend on drugs), and in exchange, you’ll get daily updates to your inbox*; access to the password-protected part of the blog where the daily updates will also live; and access to the daily, behind-the-scenes Close Friends content on @BigWorthEnergy.

Basically: If you’ve ever been like, “Man, I’d love to see the inner workings of Amber’s mind but that bitch doesn’t share shit”, here’s your chance!!!!

The Big Worth Energy Super Secret Members-Only Club is also an agreement between you and me that, unless you are my biological parent (you’re not allowed to join! So sorry! But also not sorry because you will definitely not be able to adhere to the following rules of the Big Worth Energy Super Secret Members-Only Club!) I will show you exactly what I’m doing, how I’m doing it, and how I’m doing with it, and you will keep it all behind-the-scenes by respecting the privacy covenant of the membership and not doing stuff like bringing it up in front of the group when we end up at a socially-distanced happy hour. You won’t even bring it up when it’s just the two of us and there’s a gap in the conversation! In fact, you won’t bring it up at all outside the confines of the Big Worth Energy Super Secret Members-Only Club unless I explicitly tell you first that I want to talk about it!!!

These are my boundaries, bb…which is, like, one of the things I’m going to be working on during this whole project!! Go me on the boundaries!! Oh and also, if you break them, you’re immediately kicked out and I keep all your money.

The way I would normally do something like this is spend a lot of time writing introductory posts on everything - tell you what The Pathway is all about, why I decided to use Noom, etc - and then after that was all done, then I’d dive into the day-to-day. But again, I just can’t wait any longer! So it’s going to feel a little like I’m going backwards (at least to me) as I jump into using and exploring these tools and then play catch-up on explaining all of those things to the uninitiated. 

I’m also just going to be super super honest and tell you that none of this is going to be perfect or perfectly organized, a lot of it is probably going to be really cringe, and I’m absolutely going to want to go back at least hundred times during the course of this project and just delete everything and start all over. And those are all things that have legit stopped me in the past, so I’m just putting them out there right now so we know where the bar is set and what I’m not going to do this time. I will probably rewrite a bunch of stuff and move some stuff around because, again, I’m just sort of jumping in right now instead of planning some meticulously planned project launch and I do like things to be neat and orderly, but I’m giving myself permission to do that as long as I just keep going. 

I am serious, though, about the cringe factor - I fully expect that some of the stuff I share with you, especially through the Big Worth Energy Super Secret Members-Only Club, is going to be really really embarrassing. Like, REALLY embarrassing - the kind of stuff you try to scrub from the internet when an old boyfriend comes back into your life type of embarrassing ( also why I’m having people pay for it, because I can tell you with absolute certainty that no ex-boyfriend of mine will pay for shit).

But I’m still going to do it, because I know deep down that this is going to be good for me, and I have a hunch that it might also be good for some of you, too.

So let’s do it. Follow me on Instagram at @BigWorthEnergy, sign up for weekly updates on Substack, and if you want to be part of the Big Worth Energy Super Secret Members-Only Club, click whatever paid plan works for you when you sign up for the newsletter. When you sign up for the paid subscription model, I’ll email you the password to the password-protected BWE blog that only you and your fellow club members can access, and I’ll also ask for your IG handle so I can add you to the Close Friends list on @BigWorthEnergy. And then BOOM - you’ve got yourself a front row seat to my humiliating attempts at self-development! 

And I’ve already started posting to Close Friends, so join now if you don’t want to miss a beat!

This is gonna be great, y’all. For you. I mean. For me, it’s going to hard and painful and embarrassing and hopefully worth it in the end, but for you, it’s probably gonna be great from the get! I wish I were you. You probably have stock options. And a 401K. And a partner who loves you and will take care of you when you’re sick. What’s that like, even? Is it cool? 

Yeah. I bet it’s cool. 

Big Worth Energy

Do you ever wonder what your 8 year old self would think about your life if they could see you now? 

I came across this old photo of me a few weeks ago. Looking at that chubby little face, I can still remember so keenly how I could not WAIT to grow up. And being in Florida, on that beach trip back in 1987…it only made a deeper groove of longing for adulthood. I was gonna grow up to live a glamorous, fast-paced, exciting life full of convertibles, high heels, leather miniskirts and bustiers, penthouse apartments in high-rises on the beach, and date the kind of handsome boyfriends who wore a lot of tuxedos. 

If that little girl met me right now and took a look around at my life, I can tell you for sure that she would NOT be impressed. "THIS is what I suffered through childhood for?" I imagined she'd say. "THIS is the best it gets?!!"

How many of us are living lives that look NOTHING like the lives we thought we would be leading by now, back when we were younger? And obviously, goals change - I no longer wanna be a soap opera actress on The Young & The Restless, for instance - but when it comes to the kind of life I dreamed about getting to live, the *level* of living I was so sure I would rise to... Don't you ever feel like you pretty much majorly let your younger self down?

I mean, I know I do. 

Which would honestly be majorly depressing, if I also didn’t know what to do about it. 

But I do. I know all about it. I've been studying and reading and taking notes on it for the past 10 years. I just haven’t put it all to work yet. 

But that’s where this lil’ space on the internet is going to come in. 

And I’m going to make ALL of that little girl’s dreams come true.

(…even the part about the leather miniskirts)

Stay tuned...