Pretty Quiet For A Tuesday

So not lost on me was that a year ago and that I was taking Johnnie with me to Santa Barbara for a day trip and we visited Grace and the kids too. The year before that was all that "mess" going on with Sylvia and Quentin visiting. Such a tumultuous and turbulent time that was. Which is why when I say it's a nicely quiet Tuesday, I say that with a lot of contentment and satisfaction. Also not lost on me is all this introspection and re-living trips down memory lane. As long as the memories are positive or can be turned into a positive experience, I think that's ok. More likely the product of prolonged time in the house due to the pandemic LOL. Anyay, last night I didn't really sleep as early as I would have liked. So many things going on in my mind before I was able to finally Delta frequency wave myself to sleep. In the meantime, when I woke up this morning I let Johnnie sleep in a bit. I let him sleep until it was almost 8 AM. In the meantime I was led to watch some YouTube videos. One video was about a young lady named Vanessa Lau who had created 6 streams of income all the way to $60K a month. Sweet! It gave me the idea of possibly doing one-on-one consulting to help people and then make classes out of that. Isn't that not that much different from what I do for work? Teaching them Office 365 productivity tools? And that's the kind of thing I love to do? Hmmm. Ideas Ideas Ideas. The thing seems to be that I need to learn how to share my knowledge. Create a platform and grow that. I have a lot to share. And I know lots of people can benefit. THAT is being in Creator mode. I just have to see myself doing that. And I can do that just as well for myself as I can working for someone else. I also watched 3 other videos about expanding my consciousness. One with Master Co <Pranic healing>, which as a full moon meditaton. Last night's full moon was supposed to have some significance. I also watched a video on Psych K and then one with roots to Joe Dispenza and Gregg Braden's Heart Coherence meditations. What does all this have to do with this morning? Just that I was in a very calm high vibration state most of the day that's all. And I think it even rubbed off on Johnnie. From the moment I left him alone doing my IS Team Meeting he went off by himself pretty independently. And started making lists. Yep, lists. Gee I wonder where he got that from LOL LOL? Look at him in the pic, he was doing just fine by himself.

Not that we stayed in all day either. At lunchtime I told him we were going to get some pizza from Whole Foods. Immediately he bolted up and put on his scooter gear. That I didn't expect. And off we went. He had gotten so confident, that today's ride was pretty uneventful. There and back in no time, with pizza in hand for him and teriyaki chicken bowl for me. A fine lunch those things made. And then after lunch I had Johnnie watch some Weston Woods books while... I went to the room closed my eyes and took a nap. And boy did I have a nice nap too. It was only for a half hour but I think it worked wonders. I felt so heavy and sluggish afterwards but that's ok considering I stayed up past midnight watching all those videos last night.  And it gave me a burst of energy for the afternoon too. Not that I really needed it because Johnnie pretty much did his own thing all afternoon. And when he asked to get dinner from Panda Express - after explaining to me what he did all afternoon which I posted as a video here - how could I say no? I'll barbecue the Italian sausage some other night. And I got to 5000 steps pretty much in no time too. We went to Panda Express Westwood, went home and had dinner together and then while I worked sporadically on and off while I got fits of inspiration, Johnnie continued to do his thing. He made up an entire treasure quest inside the apartment complete with a map and a lock and key and stuff to look for <the treasure>. Man may I NEVER stifle all that creative energy! And I was only all too happy to go on an indoor treasure hunt with him. Needless to say this day turned out to be unusually quiet. But also unusually satisfying in a calm, peaceful kind of way. And when we got to shower time, it felt like the night had zipped by almost effortlessly. I'm liking that. And I think Johnnie did too.

At Least I Played Golf...

So I headed out to Altadena Golf Course this morning for a 9:20 tee time armed with my double smoked bacon breakfast sandwich and Earl Grey tea from Starbucks. Why 9:20? It was the earliest I could get. At first it was Scott, Greg, and myself but Greg bowed out at the last second so it was just Scott and I this morning. At first I was going to bug out too. Didn't I want to do some meditation and work on getting myself back to balance? Wouldn't it be good to that this morning? Then I figured I had the rest of the day to do that and so I headed out anyway. I had lingering thoughts of the guys not wanting to play with me. But then again do I really care about that? As long as I got to play? After all, it was a nice, warm, sunshiny Sunday. And so it was that Scott and I got to go out and play and what did I do the first two holes? Couldn't hit the ball in the fairway. I kept telling myself to relax my swing, relax my swing but either I couldn't do that OR my rhythm simply wasn't there. Now i KNOW it's mental. Now I'm SURE it's something internal keeping me from hitting the ball square. Fortunately, by the 3rd hole i did find my bearings and started to hit the ball much better. And on the longest hole on 4, I almost got a par. I had a par putt staring me in the face 4 feet away. But I blew the putt. Won the hole but blew the putt. By the 5th hole I pulled even with Scott, even though I lost the first 2 holes and by the 6th hole I had pulled ahead. We tied on 7th when I wasted my best tee shot of the day. And then he won Hole 8 to set up a winner-take-all last hole of the day. It was a really long hole so I felt like I had an advantage. And after my first 2 shots i was already 100 yards away from the green. In the meantime Scott flubbed at least 3 shots. And so I played it real conservatively from there. Hit a short 3rd shot, got on the green to putt for par. But it was a 20 foot putt. I missed that but got my 6 to win the hole and the match. YAY! It felt good to know I should have hit par on the 2 longest holes. And really if you take away the first 2 holes, I played pretty well. We were done by 11, I was home before noon and I felt good about my Sunday morning already.

In the meantime, my face seems to be improving and I actually saw the ball pretty well today and my right eye didn't get irritated like it did last week. AND for the first time in over a month, I made it to 80,000 steps for the week! That might not sound like a big deal but considering I had been dealing with physical things for the good part of a month now, first with the leg aches and now with the Bell's palsy I thought it was actually a huge distraction to the point that I actually started to think something was seriously wrong physically. Or maybe that's just my other self trying to assert itself since I've been trying to prioritize my Higher Self. "think you're all that huh? Let's see you get a load of THIS" it seemed to be saying. And I fell prey to old thinking of FEAR and DOUBT and ANXIETY I will admit. But hopefully I have fought through all that. Or rather I have accepted the lower energies that are a part of me too and while acknowledging them I also refuse to give them power. "Thank you for sharing" but now I must get back on track. Fortunately in this day and age there are far more resources available than there was 17 years ago. I even came across this video by YouTube influencer and one of the growing number of spirituality and manifestatin/law of attraction "teachers" Leeor Alexandra who also happened to be stricken with Bells Palsy too. So she talked about her journey and how she healed using holistic methods. As I'm trying to do. And so today I felt good that I was able to find resources to help. I celebrated by barbecuing myself a nice carne asada steak for dinner. Hey it's June after all, summer is around the corner and even the pool at the apartment complex has officially opened. A nice dinner did I have, and I got to do all my little Sunday afternoon routines and didn't have to deal with Lisa since she and Johnnie were supposedly over at her dad's house. And so it was that I just simply let myself get immersed with whatever I encountered the rest of the evening. More videos on frequency healing, the latest episode of Snowpiercer which is the latest TV series I'm into on Sundays, and I let raindrops on Youtube lull me to sleep right there on the couch.  it's all good. It's Sunday :)

Return of Hot

I woke up this morning to a warm, windy day. That means the Santa Anas winds have kicked up. They were already up last night and I must say it actually lulled me to sleep hearing the rustle of the trees right outside my living room window. And today right with the wind came the heat. It was already almost 80 degrees by the time I woke up which meant it would get significantly hotter later on. And I didn't mind. It is June already after all. I'm not going to miss it if we bypass the usual June gloom and get right on to summer although it isn't actually summer just yet. But with everything going on I welcome my favorite season of the year although I really was looking forward to heading to Maui this summer <sigh>. As soon as they open to tourism I am gone... But not just yet. Today being Monday and all, I took a shower, brushed my teeth at least made an effort to return to work normalcy. My face is still bothering me obviously and today I actually shot a message to my GoForward care team. The response wasn't anything I did not expect. Obviously they had to rule out that I had a stroke, that I had coronavirus. And then eventually I agreed to come in for an in-person visit on Friday. If anything that was merely to placate Lisa if you ask me. I AM disappointed that it seemed to have gotten worse this weekend and I don't actually rule out that I am still very much in anxiety mode. That my resting heart rate went up a point when it had been on a downward trend back to the 60s was enough evidence of that. For this morning I just wanted to make sure I wasn't too self-conscious when doing the Business Continuity Meeting at 10:30.  I was also pinged about having the laptop and cellphone inventory all done. Yikes... I thought I had more than a couple of days to do that. Until I remembered Eloisa wanted to do stipends in this pay period. Which is why it had to be done today. Immediately I pivoted to my team to make sure all that info is in Paycom. I got that ping while I was walking to Ralphs too. Right before lunch. Hey I wanted to get as many steps in before it REALLY got hot in the middle of the afternoon didn't I?

As far as the rest of the work day, it was pretty uneventful other than the aforementioned inventory that became the urgent Item of the Day. I anchored on my INTENTION that I wanted to experience perfect health and healing in my face and I wanted my Higher Self to lead me to whatever I continued to need to clean and clear in order to do that.  In the middle of the afternoon I could already tell it was already going to be way too hot to do some walking. And so what did I do? Go back to doing indoor aerobics exercises. I get a kick that I'm right back to the stuff I was doing in the 80s. The funny thing was that doing that actually burned up steps seemingly much faster than when I simply walked. As in I was already at 6000 steps before I blinked. Before 5 PM! And by then it was already time to pick up Johnnie. I was actually in the middle of the inventory when Lisa called letting me know they had gotten home. I picked up Johnnie around 5:15 and saw that Courtney was watering Lisa's plants. Of course that would be why I never heard from Lisa yesterday. She was otherwise occupied. As I saw Lisa outside she mentioned that she can now tell that my face is drooping some. Great Lisa. Tell a guy already superconscious about his face about something he doesn't want to keep hearing. Sigh. But just as soon as I picked up Johnnie I felt like normal again. We went through McDonald's drive-thru to get him some chicken Mcnuggets for dinner and then it was like a continuation of playtime for him. He wanted to play the flute. So I made him one out of simply 2 pieces of paper. This kid is so easy! Look at the pic of him playing the "flute". And then we did his sundial exercise. Before finally putting on Pete-the-cat for an hour or two. A return of watching the Three Bite Rule! I did get around to doing more work before finally giving Johnnie his shower. I needed an early night too. Too little sleep in the past few days including pretty much all weekend. And even when Johnnie fell asleep, I went to my computer and did some binaural beats on Bells Palsy healing. WHILE I continued to ice the right side of my face in the hopes of making the inflammation subside. I bought some face exercisers on Amazon too. Much more resources to deal with this thing than 17 years ago. Hopefully I get back to 100%. I finally fell asleep around 11 PM. And fell asleep to Johnnie softly snoring beside me. Ahhh... back to normal.

Working On A Friday

Why is it so hard to do a TANK day on a Friday when you're working from home? Maybe it's because you're in work mode pretty much all the time. You never know when you're going to get a chat or a text from one of the higher-ups at work. Especially those that are insomniacs LOL. Or maybe it's those higher-ups deciding to do an All-Staff meeting at 8:15 AM this morning, mostly because they did not want to lose visits today. Ironically, today would have been our Employee Celebration Day somewhere and I'm sure it would have been a lot of fun. Instead we get a rah-rah from Barbara, a progress report from Chad, a guidance memo from Dr Liao, and a bit of a lecture from Eloisa about watching our expenses. All very dry really but then again the staff feel that these things are productive because they at least get communicated to. Easy for me to brush it off since I get to hear from all 3 times a week already. Still, I do agree with Barbara that we've been more collaborative now that we've been all apart than ever before. And so it was that right after the meeting which ended before 9 AM that I tried to do my TANK FRIDAY. Not like I am at the office of course where I would have been in front of the internet all day long. But who's stopping me from doing it now? Actually I envisioned doing a little walk in the morning, having a nice lunch, doing that 1 PM HIT COVID meeting, then closing it out for the day. And for the weekend. Do I even need to participate in the 1 PM meeting after all? I remember last week I got chippy. No need for that. That was just all ego. After the meeting I made myself breakfast and then tried to do some meditation. But I found myself too tired to focus. Is there such a thing? Too tired to focus? What was clear was that I didn't get a good night's sleep last night and so there went the nice mediation, and there went the walk-around-the-neighborhood in the morning idea too. At least I did get some "reflections" done via YouTube. I saw this YouTube synopsis video on Reality Transurfing by Vadim Zeland. What struck me about this particular video was that it was done by this older gentleman from Israel. And his channel had about 2000 subscribers. I mean if he can do it, why can't I be doing the same thing to help others wake up? His stuff is geared towards those seeking a better reality. Same group I wish to reach right? Hmmm...

In any case, although I did get to do some internal work by watching a video, the 1 PM meeting pretty much took away the time I set aside to take an early afternoon nap. And maybe it was more so because I was still amped an hour after the meeting. I tell you it's that ego thing. Finally by 3 PM I headed out to Trader Joe's to get my Friday after-work shopping done. Hardly a line this time and I was in and out of there inside of a half hour. It's like we're all finally figuring out how to be efficient while keeping up social distancing and limits to the number of people that can be at any one place. It's a good thing too, since a lot of business re-opened today here in Cali. Golf courses have finally re-opened and if it weren't for the fact that this Sunday is Mother's Day, I would for sure be out there. But I contacted our group and it looks like we might be out playing by next Sunday. Anyway it was a good a thing I got back early because there was one more thing I needed to take care of for work. I had to ship a laptop to the CFO consultant Eloisa just hired. At least I was still able to demonstrate that I AM working though it was already close to 5 PM. The only time I would stay until 5 PM at the FRB was because I had nothing better to do and I wanted to get a personal pizza at Pizza Studio on 7th and Fig. Man do those times seem so long ago or what? Even when we go back to the FRB I doubt if that food court is going to be the way it was. How would you enforce social distancing? And so with that I get a call from Johnnie asking me to pick up Panda Express for him for dinner. That child has me wrapped around his little finger doesn't he? I was only all too glad to get it too. It was 6 PM when he called and by then I had eaten the last of my ground beef/lamb Moroccan style casserole over rice. And so I wasn't hungry anymore although Lisa insisted on preparing a Mediterranean wrap for me. And so it was that I would get to see Johnnie on a Friday night and he and I got some play time in together after dinner. I didn't care so much only because I had already made plans to come to breakfast tomorrow morning and to bring some brioche bread to make French toast. And of course Sunday IS Mother's Day. Seeing Johnnie tonight was simply a little icing on the cake. And so even though there was no TANK DAY Friday today, it was still a relatively stress-free eezy-peezy week. And we like that. We like that very much. And we will take it any time.

Friday Lessons And Reality Checks

Today is Friday and normally on a Friday work is not really even a priority even when I was going to work. The last few Fridays this has not been the case at all because of all the urgency surrounding getting everyone prepared for remote work and actually supporting staff that is doing remote work after that. And then all these initiatives are coming out faster than you can even think up solutions. Telehealth. A surge of patients we're preparing for. Getting infrastructure ready. But this morning there was not the urgency that was around the last few Fridays. And with no Johnnie around I could actually go back to having a leisurely Friday morning... at least before having to meet with anyone at work. I ruefully remember Friday mornings at the FRB cafeteria getting a different than usual breakfast and then enjoying the downtown LA view from the patio. Although I do remember that fondly, I would in fact give that up just so I can work from home always. And this morning I actually spent time doing some internal work. First I gave thanks that it is payday today and I got a paycheck like usual. Something I reminded my team of when i did my morning huddle. That we were not a part of the millions of people filing for unemployment just this past week. That we weren't a part of the group of people that are still waiting on paying their rent or mortgages. [I give thanks that money and abundance continue to flow to me and through me] And then the lessons that I focused on today involved a reality check. Everyone and everything is what we push out. This from a Youtube video from Amy Westmoreland and Amanda from Create Your Future. The gist of the lesson is that we actually control what other people think. We write the script. And so if that means everybody is just a bunch of actors in a play we write and direct, that they are stuffed dolls waiting for their lines to come from us... well that is in fact what is happening. Everyone we encounter is playing a role we assigned to them based on our assumptions, beliefs, attitudes. It's just that we unconsciously fed them the lines based on our thinking that we are not even aware of, nor did we believe we were doing that. Before we come into our own self-awareness that is. And fully realized just how in control we really are of our own reality. That is profound. Wow so all that tension between Lisa and I all week is something I pushed out? Something I drew to myself? Her behavior was something I created? I am almost dumbfounded. And the fix is working on my awareness and intention? OK. You do that with a mental diet. And so part 2 about the Mental Diet from the Amanda channel. And it is really about Cleaning and Clearing yet again. Clearly I have a lot of that to do. And I have to do it every day. Like working out. Ok then...

And so this afternoon I went back to my "job" and interacting with my team. First I cooked up some nice salmon and made my own fried rice for lunch. Looks good in the pic doesn't it? Unfortunately my body ejected all that nice salmon. I think it wasn't all that good... probably because I let it sit in the fridge for a week. Serves me right for hoarding. Anyway we did a virtual first-Friday-of-the-month celebration on Zoom for the FRB team and I must say it actually went pretty well. We did a couple of games, I even won a couple of them. Anyway it kept the momentum of keeping us together as a team and I was actually even glad to see some of the Finance folks there. And then right after that came the afternoon huddle and Eloisa finally had the great sense to start it early so we could be done at 4:30 like we used to do before. Heck before I wouldn't even stay until 4:30 sometimes. Of course sometimes I'd stay much later... but only to have a pizza on 7th and Fig. Not anymore. And so Barbara concluded the afternoon meeting with "don't think about anything work related this weekend". I'm going to do just that Barbara.  So tonight I have the usual Netflix and dinner night. The funny thing is that I realize that other than working from home during the day, the rest of my time is like it was before all the coronavirus stay-at-home social distancing stuff. And so what I did tonight, do my steps, make myself dinner <Bolognese Arnel style tonight since I've had that ground beef and mirepoix in my fridge for at least a week now too> and then watch Netflix is something I would have ordinarily done anyway. Tonight I watched Tales from the Loop on Netflix, which is somewhat of a modern version of the Twilight Zone but with more scientific implications and a definite bent towards space-time. Probably something I should look into right? Particularly since I'm letting my attention get pulled to whatever it needs to be pulled to these days. Anyway the episode where these 2 kids were able to switch bodies and then one of them refused to switch back was particularly distressing. And then the one where this girl was able to stop time and then spent time with the guy she liked... until they got into a conflict and they didn't like each other anymore. Gee. Kinda like marriage isn't it LOL LOL. The "problem" as always is that I tend to binge watch and when I do that, I go until the wee hours of the morning. Today I did that until well past 1 AM. Sigh. That's ok I guess. What do I have to do tomorrow?

Another Johnnie Saturday

So one of the videos I watched yesterday was about a morning routine called "asking questions". The premise was that all the answers you need are already in you. You simply need to mine it by asking the right questions. And this is something I need to cultivate and do every morning. This morning when I woke up the question I asked was: How could I be the best dad to Johnnie today? This most definitely set my intention for the day. I was at Lisa's by  7:45 AM and she was already ready to go and unexpectedly [to me] making Johnnie eggs for breakfast because he was hungry. Of course he's hungry! But she also knows we go to Elysee for breakfast every Saturday morning that we're together. And we're going again this morning. When Lisa left, Johnnie took a couple of bites and then asked if we could eat at Elysee instead.  He knows. And so off we went for our usual Saturday morning. We DID have breakfast at Elysee, and then to Target to pick up groceries, and then to Whole Foods too. After all, gotta find some Clorox or Lysol wipes SOMEWHERE. The whole state can't be out of it right? Damn corona virus.  That was the Saturday morning grocery run such as it were. The power of routine and then when we got home he asked to watch Lego Indomitus. I was happy to put it on while I did laundry. And got a little work done. See yesterday went smoothly that this morning's power outage at the FRB took me by surprise. We weren't notified. And so I had to scramble a bit to get the message out and make sure the health centers are on disaster recovery mode. I was the official word. Johnnie got caught up in the videos that he wanted to have lunch at home. That was ok. I was happy to oblige. He was in such a playful mood. My favorite sound is the sound of him squealing and belly-laughing while we horseplay like in the video I posted. I will never get enough of that and that will never get old. As for lunch, it turned out I had plenty of food for ME too. I still had that fish that I bought last night that I didn't get around to cooking. We had just bought butter pasta for Johnnie for lunch for the week. He gets to have an early start on that today. And the Pediasure I wanted to try and test. And we bought some of that chocolate croissant from Whole Foods. Done and done. He had such a good lunch when I asked him to take a quick nap, he was out in 5 minutes. Just like old times :)

Anyway there were a couple of things that Johnnie did bring up in conversation today that I had to tackle. You know how kids ask the strangest questions sometimes. He asked me why people die? Urghh! I just said that people get old and then their bodies break down and don't work anymore and then they die. And then he mentioned Grandpa Koko specifically. Now where did THAT come from?? What the heck kind of conversations does that family have with my son?? He was satisfied with my answers I think. And then the second round of questions came as a comment. Out of left field it seemed. He mentioned that Brooklyn kept talking to him about marriage stuff. Seems harmless at that age so I just laughed it off. Until he mentioned that he doesn't like that he doesn't get to play with the girls sometimes and that he doesn't like playing with some of the kids. What he mentioned that they made fun of him that he couldn't read. Now I told him that THAT wasn't true and that we read every single night. The kids were making fun of him for not reading the words THEY read. Words like poop. And so I had to explain to him that he was so advanced in his reading that it was like a superpower. And like everyone with superpowers it is scary to other people. So much so they have to make fun of it. This is where negative programming starts and so I wanted to make sure I got this one right. I went back to my question this morning. THIS is how I get to be the best dad for Johnnie. By making sure he feels safe and ok and explaining other kid's behaviors. Johnnie is already going to be different that much is sure. And I really mean SPECIAL. I know all parents think their kids are special. But do most parents really know how? I will work on his social skills and get help however way I can from those that see him everyday as well. And then we played together, first baseball... at least until he broke the bat with one really hard swing. W-h-a-t? The thing is plastic! And then we played soccer afterwards. And had dinner at Panda Express. We ended up having a pretty good day. I even did an exercise with him where I asked him to draw how parents love their kids and he ended up writing how much his mom and dad love him and how he loved them back. AHHH THAT is Johnnie's love language: words. And then of course presents. In that order. Nice that Lisa and I already know this. It's sort of like a code we've already figured out. And when Lisa called at 7:30 dead tired from HER day and almost forgetting to stop at the apartment to pick him up, I was ready for the hand-off. I felt like Johnnie and I bonded even more today. I know this because quite spontaneously in the middle of our play he told me "I love you dad". Melts my heart. Every.single.time. THAT will never ever get old.

Lessons in Perception

Perhaps it was the "all-day" (relatively all-day anyway) contemplative stuff that I did yesterday that kept me in more of an "observer state" today. After all, it is Sunday, the first Sunday in Lent, it is the first day of March and a brand new month, and I'm teeing off at Eaton Canyon at 8:25 AM first thing. The last time we played here was the day Kobe Bryant died in the helicopter accident. And I also remember getting on in 2, somewhat incredulously on the first 2 holes. I should be able to do that again and then some. Right? Not so fast. Going back to the blog post from that day, it seemed like I was doing some visualization right before each shot. And reminding myself to relax and slow my swing down. That seemed to be the key. I was more deliberate. My swing had very good rhythm. Which, after the first tee shot on the first hole, I knew I did not have. I belted the thing so hard but it hit a tree on the left side and fell straight down 100 yards from the box. I was lucky even to get 100 yards. The lesson? It is what your most dominant visual, the most dominant thought(s) that controls what happens. But it IS your thoughts. If I'm not hitting the ball well, or consistently, my thoughts are consistently off the mark as well. In hindsight, I should have done more to slow myself down. But I didn't. And I played as if by random. And so my shots were as if by random. Some were good, some were bad, some were really bad. I should have chanelled Yoda: CONTROL. You must learn CONTROL. and by that he might your mind. Needless to say I did not have a good golf game today. The last time we played I almost played myself to a win. Today I won 2 holes, only 1 of them outright. And it felt lucky to win those 2 holes. I hit the ball well most of the time, but not accurately. Worse, a few times I either moved my ball to get a better lie or put it down where i wanted. Yep. I cheated. I was playing so badly I felt like I needed to just to keep up. Instead of working on my "work". Sigh. That's going to need some cleaning and clearing later on.

And then the biggest lesson of all came later after golf. After I had lunch [my usual salmon plate at Crimson], after I had taken a fairly long nap after that. Usually I'd get a call from Lisa to watch Johnnie while she played soccer this afternoon. I didn't get such a call today, which usually meant that she had either made other plans as in she wasn't playing soccer this afternoon [like last week for example], or someone else is watching him. Either way it IS her turn and she has the absolute right to do what she wished today. I reminded myself of that. When i see Johnnie on Sundays is at Lisa's discretion solely per our agreement. Still I'm not going to lie and say I wished she called today. And so when she didn't, that part of me that manufactures crap, the same part of me that manufactured tension between us at Thursday's hand-off, started to make up reasons for me to feel bad about this. Could Lisa be cutting me off to get even for last Thursday? I did some exercises to quiet my mind knowing full well it is now somewhat out of control. I went back to this week's lessons on LACK. All suffering comes from the EGO and thoughts of LACK. LACK of CERTAINTY [It's not safe], LACK OF SELF-LOVE [I'm not good enough, I don't deserve it..."love"]. And with that I also found this great video from Sandra Rolus on clearing blockages for money using specific breathing exercises. And for some reason it accessed more blocks and me aware of those. It was energy work. And it seemed to do something. At 5 PM I got a call from Lisa. She was on her way with Johnnie [asleep] to Joah's house for a dinner invite. And she told me she had had another full Lisa-type weekend that started Thursday night. Mel and Jacob had come over and spent the night through Saturday. THAT was why she was rushed herself last Thursday. It wasn't me. It wasn't us. Mel and Jacob were on their way over. And then this weekend, Elaine and Carmen and Tony came and visited too and hung out. No wonder I didn't hear from her today. It had nothing to do with me at all! Boy was I way WAY off. Perceptions can get you all knotted up sometimes for absolutely NO REASON WHATSOEVER. And with that all of a sudden i didn't feel bad anymore. Perhaps it's because those energy exercises allowed me to give myself permission not to feel bad. I went out and got shrimp pad thai for dinner, cleaned my kitchen and bathroom, and watched tonight's episode of the Walking Dead. A perfectly great Sunday evening. See what happens when you free yourself from suffering you yourself create? Hmmm. Like I said yesterday. Gotta keep cleaning and clearing every.single.day.

Learning Saturday

So today is one of my "Learning Saturdays" which means I have absolutely no plans and all I want to do is catch up on the many MANY things that I want to learn and do. More internal work for me today and judging from all the EGO traps I fell into just last night, I have much to learn. I posted a picture from my block in my neighborhood simply to symbolize the onward and upward energy I'm embracing. Today I want to tackle the question I had for myself: "Why are you so irritated with people? Not certain people although that happens too, but people in general?" Where is that anger coming from? I'm hoping to get an answer today. But first I let myself be drawn to whatever I'm drawn to on Youtube. And this morning that is a whole bunch of Brad Yates EFT tapping videos. I figured my Higher Self will lead me to whatever answers I need to get led to. I did at least 3 sessions before I even had breakfast:  Tapping on Clearing anything that isn't Love Tapping on getting $2,800,000 [which really was Tapping for $1,000,000 but I put my own amount in there LOL] Tapping on Financial Abundance. I paid attention to whatever was coming up when I did the tapping because I was pretty sure there are still some blockages I need to clear out. I have come to realize that all this energy work... they are not one-offs. They need to be done consistently and daily, just like taking a shower or brushing your teeth and flossing on a daily basis. The grit and grind of everyday life tends to put muck in my energy and THAT is what I need to work on as well. To be more consistent in my daily practice and get clearing done. And so I did this work for more than an hour and then made myself some breakfast, and then took a break to watch more Mindhunters. I ended up binge watching the thing last night until the wee hours in the morning and I still hadn't finished all the episodes. I pretty much stayed in for the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon actually, foregoing the turkey sandwich trip to Bristol Farms Playa del Rey in favor of finishing up all the leftovers I had from the week. And then an early afternoon nap as well. By the time I looked up, most of the day was gone! Funny how time goes by so fast when you're not paying attention. Especially when you're not paying attention.

By 3 PM I decided to get on out and move my body. All the inner work from this morning had uncovered some of the reasons why I was experiencing stiffness all last week, which was merely stress held in many different places. Earlier in the week I had centered on LACK as the primary cause of the all this stress. FEAR-->INSECURITY-->LACK and I didn't deal with it well. THAT is the lesson isn't it. This afternoon I found some Wm Hof breathing exercises to help release stress in my body and that is something once again that I need to incorporate into my daily cleaning, clearing practice. I liked what the guy in the video did, incorporate a couple of techniques into something that works without actually giving it a name or  label.  Anyway I did manage to get out and get my steps in, especially since by 3 PM I had only gotten to 1000 steps. I remember thinking it might be a challenge to get all the way to 10,000, let alone 11,000 by this evening. But we'll see. What i ended up doing was doing a full-on grocery shopping run. The kind I usually would do with Johnnie on a Saturday morning, except I walked this time. And I got a chance to clear my head in the process. While walking home from Whole Foods it did finally come to me: I was angry at people because I am expressing anger I feel for MYSELF. I'm disappointed in them because I'm disappointed in MYSELF. And what I need to do is accept and forgive myself. I need to ACCEPT that I'm not perfect and that despite my claim to be so thoughtful and kind... I'm not always thoughtful and kind either. PEOPLE are not always thoughtful and kind and they're not perfect. But instead of judging them, I need to accept what is and I need to FORGIVE. I need to FORGIVE myself and I need to FORGIVE them. I need to adopt more of a "so-what" attitude. And more importantly, I need to keep reminding myself of this because this isn't something new. It's something I already know but keep forgetting. I need to practice. And practice. And practice. Just like golf LOL. And with that I deemed my work done for the day. I finished my grocery store run and I ended up grilling carne asada too for my Saturday night. It was pretty good. And then had porato salad and baked beans too. Mmmm. I capped my evening with a basketball double double. Lakers and UCLA. The fact that it is the end of February and almost March (tomorrow) and both are still in the thick of things most definitely is something to celebrate! The Lakers lost a game they didn't bring energy to. But hey they're still 5 games up in first place, something that hasn't been in the case in at least 6 years! And the Bruins? they beat Arizona to take sole possession of first place in the PAC-12!! They are probably going to March Madness! An amazing story for a season I had deemed long lost way back in January! It was a pretty good Learning Saturday today, and a nice way to end the month of February.

Downtime

I woke up this morning and got some very nice meditation in for a good hour and a half at least. I meditated on the things I wanted to manifest... FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE, focused on blockages, and eventually got around to some emotional stuff I needed to heal. It is the day after Valentine's Day after all and of course, less than a year from being officially divorced, there is still stuff to clear. And I realize that this is an ongoing thing, just like cleaning your house, or taking a shower. Stuff needs to get cleaned as part of a maintenance process. Until you don't have to clean it anymore. I think I'm still touching the surface in terms of the actual techniques to do stuff and specific things, timings, etc but I think I'm also doing pretty well with just the stuff that I know. It doesn't have to be perfect and precise. Intention is the key. And not only that but I also put in my own affirmation-on-theta meditation. The one I made myself and looped it. By the time I got done it was past 8 AM and when I looked at my fitbit I had logged a good 8 hours of sleep. FANTASTIC! The interesting thing was that I wanted to keep up that momentum this morning. Wanted to watch some more videos. Only the ones that I got attracted to today involved not manifestation, or law of attraction, or financial stuff. At least not directly. I watched a couple of more videos from Aaron Abke and actually watched some stuff that had a spiritual bent on them. Stuff about Heaven, Hell, angels, even negative or demonic entities. And then he describes about how he based his belief on hell specifically from a pastor named Carlton Pearson. This is the video he talked about. And it SO resonated with me too. Especially the part about how we're ALL already saved. So monumentally different from fundamental Christian stuff. Suddenly I realized that I am in alignment with the views of this pastor. Even found him in an interview with Dr. Michael Beckwith. And in alighment with Filipino pastor Joshua Tongol. And I had the distinction that this point of view is emerging and i am merely one point of consciousness that helps create critical mass. What to do with that I'll have to see.

I was so wrapped up in watchin all these videos and then I also threw in a couple of episodes of "the Outsider" since I had a free day of HBO. To force myself out of the house I went to get the usual lunch at Bristol Farms Playa vista. I love how they make you the thickest turkey sandwich. And then I got some sample guacamole too to eat my chips at home with. I ended up having a pretty nice lunch and since I had gotten good sleep from last night, I didn't have to take a nap this afternoon. Didn't stop me from simply chillin' though, hence the picture by my pool. I figured I needed to integrate all that knowledge and insights I got from this morning. Except... boy is that a gut I'm seeing there in the picture? That reminded me... I was at 1600 steps at 4 PM. Uh-oh. Am I going to get to 11,000 steps today? Heck can I even make 10,000? I decided to go shopping. And I ended up walking to Whole Foods. And then when I got done, I put the groceries away and then went on and walked to Ralphs and got some more groceries. I did a full-on grocery run, INCLUDING Trader Joe's. By the time I got done, I felt tired. And no wonder. I was at 10,000 steps and it wasn't even 6 PM yet. I sure made up the gap in a real big hurry didn't I? And then I made myself some old school ground pork and bok choy for dinner. Haven't had that in a while. Used to be a staple I would make for Lisa... that she wouldn't eat LOL LOL. I thought about she and Johnnie supposedly going hiking today and I hoped that Johnnie had a good time. I hope I get to see him tomorrow anyway. Anyway, I made enough for at least 2 more nights and that's ok. I never did get around to cleaning the apartment, not that I was real serious about doing that anyway. I swept around the TV area and under the couch. But no detailing like I would. Simply no energy and no time.  I was already past 12,000 steps and I didn't feel like exerting myself anymore. Just watched some of the NBA All-Star festivities stuff and watching more TV. It was a downtime Saturday as it turned out and that is perfectly fine with me.

Lessons first day of February version

So today is the first day of February. A brand new month. And not lost on me was that January is already gone and I'm at the same place that I was - seemingly anyway - than when 2020 started. This is how I ended up letting 30 years go by. I simply didn't do a good enough job of following through and sharpening my focus. But I also need to forgive myself for that. And for January. And I have to start over. To that end, I had a nice meditation session this morning first thing and what i focused on was the outcomes that I wanted. I asked my Inner Self what was preventing me from getting THAT which was what I wanted. I presumed to focus on the feeling of FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE which gave me the feeling of freedom. But i also had thoughts on what I needed to express more in terms of my passions and what I wanted to do. I love to learn. I'm good at culling information and resources together.  Is that enough to create my 2nd income stream? Maybe 3rd or 4th? And then I focused on how I got to be successful at having my job and doing the work that I do. I need to focus and project that same competence in the "work" of creating new occupations for me that created as much or more of my current income level. And it occurred to me that I must "attack" that occupation the same way I go about my job. Clock in (mentally anyway). Focus on the outcomes by the day or by the project. Plan these projects. Get resources together. Create timelines. Make things happen. Provide massive value. Measure how I succeed. All those things from my job that I am already very competent at doing and getting results. I have to do the same stuff. The meditation session also brought some stuff to the surface. Internal blockages still. The FEAR that came up was fear of failure from not having the income constancy of a job. THAT I have to continue to work on. It's all I know for now. I need to challenge that thought. Why can't I just learn to do THAT if i truly love learning the most? I can learn anything couldn't I? 
And then I got on the video from Aaron Abke about the ego and its need for attention which feeds it and the awareness that it is constantly harboring guilt and that FORGIVENESS is the only thing that can counteract it. We must accept our darker nature but we must also learn to control it and focus more on our natural light. And then the Teal Swan video on how time is a man-made construct and we must focus on our passions rather than trading our time for money. When we're focused on our passions time becomes almost irrelevant. Kind of appropos to the earlier stuff I wrote about a job wasn't it? So do I give myself a timeline or Not? It is February 1 should I give myself 29 days to manifest something to make that "skill" more believable to me? [do i really need a timeline for that? can't I do it now?]. Can I manifest $20,000 by the end of February? I go back to my golf game last Sunday where I know I simply couldn't hold my focus and sustain it more than a couple of holes. How do i reconcile this with needing to be so absorbed in my passion that time sort of goes away? Lots to absorb, lots to process. How do I keep my mind from wandering too much. I feel like I'm all over the place this morning. Maybe a little bit overwhelmed even. Before I knew it the morning had passed and it was noon already and I hadn't left the couch. Is that good?

It was such a nice day though it would be a shame not to take advantage of it. I had already stayed in and I chose not to go to Bristol Farms to get a turkey sandwich at lunch which had sort of become somewhat of a routine. Today I just realized that I had so much food in the fridge that I baked the frozen halibut in the freezer, opened up the bag of ready made rice and voila... lunch! And then afterwards I knocked off for about 1 1/2 hours for my afternoon nap. It was past 3 PM before I decided I had to get off the couch. I hadn't done any activity, the steps log was at barely 1000. Oh well,  I had to do grocery shopping anyway. And so I did the Ralphs, Trader Joe's routine and made a stop at Marukai along the way to pick me up some Japanese food. Hadn't been to that place since the last time I did the hand-off many months ago now. It's not that I didn't have a Japanese store near me. Quite the contrary actually, it's just that the specific Korean noodles I liked I saw here and I didn't see at Mitsuwa or at Ninjiya on Sawtelle. Maybe I just wasn't looking hard enough. Anyway I got them now. My thinking was that I was not going to eat pizza tomorrow on Super Bowl Sunday. And so I loaded up on Asian food LOL. I thought about doing some more study videos tonight but I was all studied out. I think I need to let this morning's lessons process. And there's also golf tomorrow to help me integrate and practice manifesting. That is where I'm at really. Practicing manifesting skills. Tonight I saw the Lakers finally play like their real selves and win the 2nd game of a back-to-back in Sacramento, matching last years season win total weeks before the All Star Break. It's unbelievable now that they only won 37 games last year. And then I finally got around to watching the movie Jojo Rabbit. I really liked the movie. It ended up being somewhat of an allegory like District 9 about how we demonize those that aren't like us. So apropos to our current divided country wasn't it? It became they and us. And then when we find out that all they are... are people. Just like us. When we see them as human beings, suddenly those divisions become less apparent and less important. And it tied in to the lessons from this morning. We are all connected. Division is an illusion. We must never forget.