When Life gives you lemons it's so very hard to be grateful that you already have water, sugar, honey, lemon zest for homemade essential oils... you get the point. I spent years fighting for the life I wanted and thought I needed. I took corporate jobs that I was great at, but never fully loved, and still lost my sense of self when I was overlooked, under-appreciated, and disenfranchised. I kept asking God why He had forsaken me. Where was His Love & Protection in this season? What more did He want from me? Why no matter what I did or what path I walked was I served lemons instead of milk and honey?

In these tough seasons of seeming abandonment, our friends are little help. They do what they can. They listen to us vent. They offer solutions when we're not ready to hear them (because we're too busy wallowing). Then, eventually, they let us go because they're at their ropes' ends and simply can't be around us any longer. So we blame God for our friends abandoning us as well. In short, we spiral out. We descend into depression and focus on all the things we don't have and can't seem to get while filling up on envy as we watch others gain more and revel in their own happiness. Why not us? When is our turn? How do we get out of the rut?

Gratitude. Thanks. Acknowledgment and recognition. Seriously. Focusing on what we want or don't have or have lost is no way to change our  current situation. It keeps us in the wallowing phase of things. It causes us to feel less than our worth. It makes us blame God, our friends, our family, and-- if we're evolved enough-- ourselves for a lacking we perceive to exist. But what if there is no such thing as a lacking? What if we have exactly what we need, when we need it, always? What if God never forsakes us or leaves us without and the only thing standing in our way is our mindset? What if we stopped focusing on what we want and instead truly looked at what we already have with appreciation and fulfillment and asked ourselves "how can these things better serve me?" or better still "How can I better serve these things I have been given?"

My life transformed in ways I can't describe in one blog when I started listing FIVE things a day I was grateful for. Just five! Suddenly I realized how many resources were in my life. How much power I had access to. How many friends, family, and acquaintances were here for my betterment and higher self. I saw God's hand in places I hadn't even known work was being done on my behalf. I became elated and overwhelmed with love and a new understanding of my worth. What a relief! And that was just the first step on a beautiful journey of gratitude and self-love. Five things a day.

So what five things are you grateful for? List them just for today. And then try again tomorrow and as many days as you can. Give thanks with a grateful heart and unlock your deepest,  fullest desires!
 
​Know Thyself; Love Thyself; Heal Thyself. Amen.

When we have siblings, one of our favorite things to do as a child is confront our parents with the toughest question of all: "Which of us do you love the most?" Most parents pass this test with ease, stating that they love all their children equally. This, of course, is met with chagrin and disappointment by children as we couldn't possibly fathom having enough room in our hearts to love multiple things equally when we spend most of our days picking a favorite color, animal, flavor, etc. Luckily, as we grow so does our understanding of how love works. We discover that not only is it possible to love many things with equitability but it's also possible to have multiple types of love for things in this world.

There are so many depths to Love and its expressions, but as we learn to love ourselves we are faced with the task to understand how we now must interact with the world. In order to do that most affectively we need a foundation of understanding how love manifests in our hearts. This prevents us from returning to old habits and obligations, protects us from emotional vampires & narcissists, and creates healthy boundaries that keep us whole.

To that end, I want to share my understanding of four (to five) of the most common ways we understand love and what they mean to our lives.

1) Eros: That Chica-Chica Bow-wow Love. Marital Love. Physical Attraction. This is that Root Chakra Love. It connects us to our bodies and to the world around us in the most basic way possible. When abused, it can cheapen its expression, but the truth is every sexual act exchanges a Love of Self for an appreciation of another. You don't need to be married to make this exchange nor do you need to be aware of it, but the price remains the same. To maximize our worth we must always measure our value with that of the person's perception of us and investment in us. We can give freely and as often as we want, but we mustn't trick ourselves into believing that Love of Self isn't part of the offer (sometimes literally) on the table.

2) Philia/Philos: Brotherly Love. Deep, Platonic Friendship. This love is not based on physical attraction or human compassion, but the most unique and under-appreciated of loves. It is the choice to bring someone into your life and keep them there because of inexplicable bonds. This love is about creating the world around us and resonates for some in the Heart Chakra, but understandably in the Sacral Chakra for others. Within this love there is also Storge, which is familial love. I can see the need to separate the two when discussing Parental/Child love, but most people recognize that true friends, that tribe you build your world around and share those adult moments of your life with... that is the family you create. Making Philos one of the most important expressions of Love as it merges Love with the greatest gift humanity has: Free Will.

3) Agape: Universal or Divine Love. Namaste Love. The recognition of Spirit and Humanity in others. Agape Love is not readily accessible to everyone. In fact, most people have to work to truly understand pure, unconditional love. A lot of us think we've achieved it, but still find ourselves riddled with a need to change or control the people in our lives. That's not Agape Love (or any love, really). When we journey inward and learn ourselves and fall in love with ourselves completely, we take the first steps to achieving this Divine, Crown Chakra Love. It's that patient, kind, gentle love that meets each individual where they are and embraces them without judgement or need of reciprocity. It feels good to believe we have this love in us, but that's just not true unless we've put in the very difficult work of opening our hearts to forgiveness, divinity, truth, and acceptance. Once we achieve it though... the world becomes filled with peace that passes all understanding and we truly see that everything is possible.

4) Affection: The act of showing Love. Love in Motion. To hug. To caress. To touch. To pray. To heal. To forgive. To feed. To make laugh. This love is the love that embraces and surrounds us. It is the most subtle of Loves and as a result is as powerful as it is overlooked. Our lives would be nothing without affection, for even when we have the other forms of Love mastered, what good are they if unexpressed? Paolo Coelho once said that "Love isn't a feeling; Love just is." This is Affection. Love as a state of being. Or even better, as a motivation for all actions.

So as you take the love you have for yourself and begin to share it with the world, make sure you understand which love it is and the appropriate way to express it, but most importantly do express it. And when you're ready, make it the sole motivation for all you do.

​Know Thyself; Love Thyself; Heal Thyself. Amen.

Friendship is one of the most precious things in our world. Surrounding ourselves with the right people creates a foundation of support and love that is unlike anything else we experience. As we get older, our circles tend to get smaller but more sacred; And the journey towards that tribe of true people is often a mirror of the journey towards loving ourselves.

A few years ago, I had a very close friend who had been with me through a lot of the darker times in my life. Since living in LA the past twelve years, friendships had become a rarity and thus I held on to as many as I could regardless of what they looked like. This friend and I had a few hiccups along the way, but I hadn't realized how little she respected me until I came home to find her in my house without invitation. And it wasn't enough that she was visiting without my permission, but she was having a cocaine and pizza party with my roommate's friend, her girlfriend, and her dog, that was sitting on my brand new couch. I should mention now that I don't do (nor have I ever done) cocaine, I don't have pets of any kind, and I had specifically asked her not to pursue a friendship with this particular roommate until he'd moved out of the apartment, which was scheduled to occur in a few weeks (long story); So everything that I'm sharing hit me that much harder as I entered my home with my roommate. When I asked her to leave not only did she refuse, but she raised her voice at me... in my house. In that moment I stepped outside of the, apparently, meek person I'd become and used a myriad of colorful language to remove every last person in that situation not only from my home but also my life.

This started something magical. I started to see all the friendships I had very clearly. I realized that as I had allowed myself to fall into my own depressions and wallow in lower vibrations I'd invited a slew of people into my life who were happy to take advantage of me or be friends as long as I was doing what they needed or wanted of me. And this wasn't only about material things or eating up my time and energy. Some people were solely there to watch me wallow in my own misery or listen to how deeply I was suffering. It somehow made them feel superior or elated or perhaps comforted. I'm not entirely sure, but what I am certain of is as I began to love myself and live for myself again... as I embraced my personal power and stopped giving it away, these people fell to the fringes of my life or dropped out completely.

This all occurred simultaneously to my year long journey of falling in love with myself about two years ago. Since then, I've learned to measure my own progress by the Toxic Friendships that reveal themselves and fall away. I rarely remove anyone from my life these days-- I'm in my thirties, the industries I work in are small and interdependent, and LA is hard enough without going at it alone-- but as I love myself more and more deeply and live in that truth unapologetically, the Narcissists I have attracted to me as a healer and empath naturally take their leave as I no longer serve their personal ambitions and needs.

The friends I have now are more like how I see myself in my mind's eye. We think alike. We have similar interests. We rarely need something from the other that isn't naturally given or exchanged. I never feel taken advantage of or like I need to compromise myself or make myself smaller for them to feel important or loved. I never feel completely overlooked or misunderstood and rejected. And what's amazing to me is some of these friendships are over twenty years old and some are only a few weeks old, but they all feel like home.

Know Thyself; Love Thyself; Heal Thyself. Amen.
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