Whose Life Have You Been Living?

This is a deep question because it takes a lot of thought and honesty. Yeah, it really does. And as I was thinking, getting lost in my thoughts. Yeah, I thought my life was going to be different. It was made up. It was made up from conditioning, cultural and just not knowing who I was. So I think it was made up so it had no imagination to it. As I can, as I'm thinking about it now, it had no imagination to it. It was just methodical. So it never I don't. Yeah, I just I don't think I even envisioned it. Did you? Did you? No, I honestly you know what? As you're saying this, I honestly didn't. I mean, I have like, you know, from a young age, I had like the hopes and the dreams, but it was really it was like looking at a TV screen families and happy people and kind of kind of thinking I would win like the People Lottery, like I would end up with those people in my world and I would be moving along this current that brought me to my dreams and goals. But I didn't have a plan. Yeah, it was like I had a definition of where I wanted to be when I was 60. Honest to God, I didn't think I'd live. So I'm kind of like that's an amazement, you know? I think. Yeah. But I was just I felt like my life was just in this drift. And I just think wherever it went is where I went. That's really it was no control. It was out of my control. So I my life had no depth to it. It had no excitement. Like so when excitement happened, I didn't know like what to do with it. Especially I remember the first time I got. I was talking to somebody the other day about fighting jobs I had, and I said, I remember two great ones. And it was walk radio. And I was I was a teenager and I was working. It was my first job. And like every teenager wants those those jobs that like put you on the map. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Exactly. So I was in one of those jobs, you know, wasn't Burger King or McDonald's. It was like on the map jobs. And I literally got there because of my voice. And it was like, you have such an amazing voice. And I'm like, I don't know who they listen to. But it was really what was I going to see that happens? So from that. OK, so I started when I started to experience pops of life, the first timers, the first times in life. That was like monumental. But I didn't know how to celebrate it because I was always going with whatever was happening, like, you know, whatever was happening. So I didn't know how to celebrate it. And it was not until late in my life did I say, hey, I was an amazing job. You know, boom, boom, boom. You know, I started celebrating those things. And people's like, oh, why? What are you celebrating? That's the fact that in 1992, I did that. I had to go back and celebrate all those things because I didn't know what life, you know, was supposed to look like. And then when it looked different, right, when it looked different, I didn't know how to celebrate it. You know, I really love that you're saying that, because I think that really is important to emphasize. It's never too late to celebrate the things that we felt because we were. I know that for me anyways, shining your light was something you did not do. Like if I felt even remotely proud about something that I did or had achieved, I was walking around with like this invisible measuring stick, seeing if anybody else felt it was worthy. And if I didn't get anybody that felt like it was worthy, I just brushed it aside, which is so crazy. You know, and that's what that's like one of the most amazing things about being where we are right now is that we don't have those rules anymore. You know what I mean? We don't. And as you were talking about going along in life, it it reminded me that years and years ago, I thought it was a good idea to go kayaking down the Snake River in the spring. It's very, very not smart. Yeah, that's a nice way of saying it was. Yeah, yeah. But and I literally was swept along with the current. I went underneath. I had no idea which way was up. And I remember in my head going, just let me die. Just let me die. Yeah. And when I when I got pulled out of the water and I was safe, I remember feeling like that's how life had been for me for so long. Like I was just moving along. And then all of a sudden, like it was wherever the current decided to bring me. I had no control. Yeah, I really felt like I was in a life like that, you know? And last year I went kayaking in North Carolina where there's really zero rapids and I was just floating along going, wow. You know what? This is how life is supposed to be. So different, you know? Absolutely. I think the biggest trap that when we hear the word starting over is that there's there's a clean slate. But what I said to someone the other day is, no, I'm reintroducing myself. And that's a different perspective than the slate, because now you got to build everything over. Because you got to remember, we built maybe 30 or a decade, 30, not 30 decades, but decades of information. And not an experience. So you can't wipe the slate clean. Do not say that, guys. Do not say that, because we have so much power in our mouths. And you say, I want to wipe the slate clean. Guess what it does for you? Because this happened to me. It wipes your memory. What you say, it wipes your memory. And you're like, why can't I remember that? Because you said it. Right. Just a tidbit on the side. Just a tidbit on the side. We already have like issues with memory going on and everything like that. But let's grieve the old plan. Let's grieve the old plan. Right. Reintroduce ourselves to life. Hey, I'm back in, back in business, you know, back in business. What could I do? You know, and a great thing that I did just this morning, because I'm always getting up and getting out of the timeline of the grid and trying to get into the timeline of abundance. I'm rendering to that. If I sat down and I wrote everything that I a goal that I wanted, I wrote down, it wasn't that maybe to be honest with you, it was like maybe 10, not even. And what I discovered is that it wasn't about the money. It was about the freedom. Yeah. Yeah. It's about the freedom. Money does bring that freedom. But then I started to reevaluate my goals just like you would with your old your old plan, the old plan, your motherhood and all of this. And, you know, that's over now for some of us. It really is over. It's, you know, they're gone and they're doing their thing. Right. But now what for you? And that's I think that's why we really created it now. What? Because here it is. This is the time that was for you. Now what? What do we do with that? But right. I think the energy that we spend with the clean slate shouldn't be, you know, because then we're starting real blind like you were on that river. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. We're blind. We don't want to be blind. We want to experience our experiences that we have learned and build upon those. Yeah. I mean, look at the tools that we accumulated. You know what I mean? Without all of our life experiences bringing that's our goal. That is our treasure. Everything, even if it felt at the time like it was our health. That is our masterpiece that we've created from that and who we are today. Is largely due to our experiences and our environment and our thought process, which really takes over our soundtrack in our head. But I mean, we need we need to take those tools and maybe we're not proud of all of those tools. You know what? So you have a decision to make. Do you want to sit in that or do you want to gather the tools that really created this masterpiece and bring those along for the ride? 60 what now? Right. It's not 60. What now? Right. Yeah, I think I want to build on what you said. I think the tools really are our wisdom, our resilience and our clarity. Right. But sometimes we misuse those tools. We create not nice things. So those are the things that we're probably kind of grieving over. Like that was that focus. Yeah, it's hammer. Right. You know, yeah, overrides. I think this is my clarity in the wrong way. And, you know, I use my resilience the wrong way. It was my wisdom the wrong way. And you gain that over the years of experience and processing. Right. Right. You gain that over the years. But now you have these tools. Now, you know, you have a tool belt that you can really now kind of start to create something different, use your hands and create something different. A lot of times we use those things as weapons. Oh, yeah. We use them as weapons versus tools. And it doesn't come out too well. No, this is true. This is true. I've been the boss of other people. Right. I had children. I know now that wasn't the way to behave. However, that was the school that I brought to the table. I felt like I was the boss of the kids because somebody was the boss of me. So then I I pushed that authority out there. It was not pretty. It was not good. But that's the only tool that I had to parent with. I didn't I didn't have any better tools. And then you reach an age where all of a sudden your kids are like, you're not the boss of me. That's right. Right. So they try to they try to push that on you when they're six. But it really becomes very effective when they're a teenager and they just move the ---- right out of your house. Yeah. Done. You're over. You're not the boss of me anymore. Then you sit there and if you if you happen to be married, you try to like push that on that person. Or if you've got some friends or family that you're close to, you try to push it out on them. And then one day you're 60 and you're like, I've never been the boss of me. Yeah, right. Now what? Absolutely. You know what? Yeah. Well, I'm going to go on the perspective of being the family hero or the family pseudo mom. That's where I was. And being parentified early had me parenting everybody else except for myself, except for my little Edna. I was parenting everybody else. I literally had my sisters. I have four sisters. Two didn't live with me, but two of the others, they all lived with me when they were old until I had to say, no, I wouldn't have their net. I had my nephews. You know, I don't have that many. I have like three. And I have my nephews living with me and they had their partners or they were living with me in my big house. Right. And I'm taking care of my son, you know, my my daughter. She left home at 19. But that was taking care of everybody. Right. You're taking care of everybody. So 2013, 2012, November. I remember saying to myself, no stinking. I didn't say stinking. I was like, this is it. And so I gave everybody notice, verbal and written. I by by February have somewhere to go. So as I'm talking to my sister, they say, where am I going to go? I said, you're 40 something. You get rid out. You got all these men, right? Right. Right. You know, form a relationship, build one with them and go make a plan to live together. I don't know, but figure it out. And we start to take that tool, like you said, and then do the same stinking thing. And I don't mean stinking, but do the same thing with everything else. The job, even shopping. We think, you know, if you look up the word boss, you're not going to like the word boss. So if there are any English majors out there, you know, we should be using that word. Boss is the worst word ever. But I digress. We have been doing a demolition job with the tools that we've been doing. That's awesome. We've done a demolition job, and some of it wasn't given. It wasn't what we were given. It was just pronounced on us. So we kind of got it through that. You know, we went through life with that dysfunctional tool. Yeah, right, right. Yeah, that's very true. And then, you know, and then it's, you know, and it's really quite sad, actually, when are going through those motions. And then all of a sudden you you get to this part of your life and you feel like without that, you are nothing. So if I'm not helping someone, if I'm not. And we have to really understand. And this is where a good therapist comes into play. There is a difference between helping someone and hurting someone that's often disguised as enabling someone. So I can't tell you how many friends I have right now. Their adult children are living with them. Yeah. Long term. This isn't like, OK, I had termites. They're going to put a tent on the house for a couple of days. Can I stay with you, mom? Or, you know, hey, I've got a brand new house being built, but my house sold really quickly. Can we stay with you for three months? And, you know, there's a timeline. There's an agenda. Right. Exactly. All right. Taking advantage of and us allowing that because it is our measuring stack of stack and stick of worthiness. Yeah. Are two different things. Those are two different things. And that's hard. So I guess you think talking about that, there there is my friend of mine that's I'm usually have friends that are 10 years old and I'm telling her, I'm telling her, you're not preparing him a long term life. This is how I live. What if I'm going tomorrow? What if today was my last day? Well, I have all my paperwork in place. Do I have to have my friends know what's going on? What what if my kids are with me? They need to be doing something more. Yeah. You know, and that's how I stopped in England, November of 2013. No, 2012, when I got back to China is when I said no more. And that's that's the difference between enabling. And then on the flip side of that now, I told I said, now, don't you go looking for places for him if you're going to do that? You know, guide him to somebody whose pay grade is that. Yeah, right. Sure. I mean, there's somebody that can do that for him. Don't you take is that you take too much control again into that? You know, and, you know, I had to say the same thing every time, you know, one of my kids to come here for whatever reason, like you said, when you leave, that's the first thing I talk about in the beginning, not even at the end. OK, what's the plan? What's the plan? My nephew came to stay with me when he was leaving to move to New Jersey. So how long? How long you saying? You know, that's that's how you got in the interim. You got to be doing you got to be doing something productive. You're not going to sit on the couch and do nothing. So always a plan, you know, again, like like you said, and we're right now we're standing in place. This is, you know, and I know a lot of you out there now listening or watching are standing in a place where things look entirely different then. And it wasn't even imagination. It was what was given to you that that that script that was given to you. Like, wow, I don't that's looking nothing like the Brady Bunch. Right. Right. Like the Brady Bunch. It looks nothing like the white picket fence and the dog and the children. It don't look like that. Yeah, it look like a hot mess. Right. Exactly. And so what we do with that now? You know, you know, what's what's really cool about where we are right now in ourselves, though, in addition to all the tools that we're bringing to the table is clarity. So if we if we suddenly wake up at 60 ish something and we're not where we had envisioned ourselves to be, it's not too late. It isn't. Yeah. Yeah, it's really not too late. I never in a million years dreamed I would be where I am right now. I am in a place way better than what I allowed myself to dream in my younger years. I didn't I didn't ever dream. No, that's as I say, you didn't dream. You didn't dream. I really did it. Yeah. I mean, I kind of but I've made some choices along the way. And moving forward now, I do envision where I want to see myself going because there's power in that. There's power in the clarity. And, you know, it's just it's just something that's really I think it's really difficult to express to somebody is feeling so lost that you have all the tools you can get there, you know? Yeah. The easiest thing I could say is stop. Just give yourself permission to let go of the expired. I'm tired. It's over. And that's what they say. L.I.G. That's what I say. L.I.G. Let it go. It's over. You have to let it you literally because we don't realize that we are holding on to things. I had to my oldest son. I had so much guilt around picking his father after he left and not, you know, not being able to support him as a man, as a as a black man and in him going in and out of the justice system. I felt so much guilt for him when I said when he finally came home, I say you have to get out on your own and figure this out. I cannot be your see you because all I'm doing is helping you die. Right. Because you're always going to need place to land and not be able to get up on your own feet, no matter how bad it is or how bad it looks to me or to anybody else. You have to get out there and get those bumps and bruises. Yeah. So I'm saying to you, audience, is give up that expired timeline. Stop trying to repair the structures that you build. Stop trying to fix the older version of you, how you put the makeup on the older version. Stop, because it was all it's bad. It all looks bad. It all looks bad. Let your natural self be, you know, let it go. Reclaim your agency. You know, one thing that I reclaim my agency was is I was everything to everybody all the time, everywhere, whenever. I was all of that. Right. And I was one to always have the latest hairdo, the latest nails, all of that stuff. And I don't know if I told you, but one day I'm looking in the mirror and I'm so tired of myself. I'm so tired of myself. And I was like, I don't like where I'm going, you know? And I remember listening to Dwayne, no, Dwayne Dwyer. And yeah, and so I remember listening to him and I had just started the affirmation process, you know. Go into my bathroom, I'm looking at myself. I'm so sick of myself. I want a different life. I want to uncover stuff. And as I'm looking, I see the nails and I see the hair. And I put my hair just like this and then push my hair back as a man. I'm really cute under all of the stuff I was hiding. It was all masks, every bit of it, the nails, the hair, all of his mask. Now, I wasn't a great big makeup person unless I was modeling or something, but I didn't need that much. And I was never like that. I love lipstick. Don't get me wrong, girl. I had my nephew come over and cut all my hair off and started. I'm not saying that you have to, but I started over. And what I found out along the way that all those chemicals, all what I was doing to myself was actually stopping my spiritual growth in my third eye. Yeah, the crown chakra, all of that was stopping the flow of creativity because I was wearing this heavy mask, which was on my hair. All of that. I'm telling you, give yourself up. Give that old version of you up. This is where we are. You know, battle scars. I mean, wrinkles, cuts, whatever happened happened. It's a new version of you. I mean, let me just say when you accept you, you're going to look so amazing. The people are gorgeous. If you just woke up out of the bed, you like they talk about. But because you accept yourself, when you wear that natural glow of accepting and loving yourself, it's it's different and it's different. You reclaim your agency. You now can be able to pivot in your life and make it be confident because you love your little man. Such goosebumps over that, that there is so much freedom in that. Yeah. Yeah. So much freedom in that. You know, when I when I stripped off that facade, there was a number of years ago where I actually was like I used to be just like you, the fingernails, the hair, the makeup, like I was. So the measuring stick, hey, look at me. How do I look right now? Like, I'm really it's usually like maybe one or two days a week. I actually brush my hair, you know what I mean? So I'm like, really? And I and I do that in the morning when I'm about to see you. Otherwise, like I just roll. And it's not that I want to, you know, run around being messy, Marvin. But those are things that, you know, I'll run a comb through it. But I'm not sitting there in the mirror being concerned about how I'm showing up, because that's here. Right. That is here. That is how I love people. That is how I don't judge people. That is how I care to be. And it's a it's a freedom that you can't ever describe. Absolutely. Until you feel it. And I find it I find it so sad when I see all these millions and billions of dollars in these potions and Botox and all this crazy ---- that people do to act like they're really not 60. You can't hide that. And it's going to show up when you walk, when you when you move. It's going to show up. OK, it's going to show up out of that. It's going to show up out of that. You know, I mean, I really I really do remind myself how incredibly blessed and grateful I am that I get to breathe into 60. Then I'm not dead into 60. Yeah. You know what I mean? I will. I have never been ashamed of my age. I have never lied about my age. I will say my age before somebody asks my age. Because I'm grateful to live. Absolutely. I agree with that, because a lot of my my little crew that I used to be with, I could tell you I'm the only one alive. And they they died early, early, early of different situations. And they they died early. The crew is no longer maybe another person, but she's really sickly as well. But I count it all good or beautiful. You know, just to wake up alive, you know, and we have the ability, you know, to on this health part, we have the ability to heal ourselves. And, you know, that is not complaining. That really is waking up, getting into the time, rendering to the into the timeline of abundance, rendering to that. Say, OK, what is going to be? It could be just being home all day. Yes. Yes. Just be a home all day. But guess what? It looks and feels different when you render to abundance because abundance to be joy, to be peace, happiness, health. And then it starts that journey of let me just put in some time doing some exercise, maybe even go on a brisk walk, you know. Just getting out of the house, maybe that's maybe maybe just walking in the rain. I remember walking my granddaughter. She wasn't in a great mood. And I said, let's go outside. It was raining. She's she's 11 now, not 10. They went outside and put our boots on and we also we splashing in the water. So I have my little small pup with us, too. But we're splashing in the water and we're just like running in the water. Nobody's outside with us. And she was in such a great mood. She's like, wow. But the the nature itself is part of us. When we neglect that and stay inside this little box. Yeah, we become in this box. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So true. So true. So you mean taking inventory of like all of the amazing experiences and tools that we are bringing now to our table and then sitting down and going, what are the dreams that I have for me today and for tomorrow? What are some of the dreams and how can these tools help? You know, because we have so much more than we realize. Well, audience, you just heard the question for the day. Sit down and write that. What are my dreams that I have for today? What are my dreams for today? So maybe we'll do this. Do the exercise I did today. Sit down and just write out what your goals are or your dreams. And just write them down. Don't cross anything out. Just write them down and let them flow out. No matter what they are, it will be horseback riding. Don't consider you might not be able to do it. Just write it. Don't consider that. Just if you want to do it, you can do it. But just write it out. And that's just the goal for this week is to finish this week off, writing out those goals and see how they work. Yeah, see how they work. Then ask yourself the final question is, how can I or what can I do to get closer to that goal? I love that. How exciting. How exciting. Just let yourself dream without judgment. Yes. Dream without judgment. That's beautiful. Awesome. Awesome stuff. Very good stuff. So exciting to be 60 plus. Yes. Now. I know. What now? It's almost like what kind of trouble are we going to get into? What's now? Absolutely, absolutely. Awesome. Awesome. My friend. Awesome stuff. Yeah. So.