✈️ FIBC, Lights, Europe, & More!
Tag: utopia dreamscape
FI BOOK CLUB
I am planning to read 12 books around financial independence in 2022, 1 per month, and am going to host a book club to discuss the book of the month on the 4th Friday of each month. I am in California, USA, and planning to do this from 7-8:30pm PST. If you can make it, DM me your email address and I’ll add you to the google cal invite! The books I’ve chosen are in the next image. Hope everyone is ready to claim abundance in 2022! 💸
New Years Manifestations
About 5 years ago I changed my phrasing from “New Years Resolutions” to “New Years Goals”. This has served me incredibly well. It took the stigma off of “Resolutions” – popularly perceived as something you say but don’t do. This flip of terminology gave it a different meaning to be something more attainable based on personal goals that I was already working towards. It felt more achievable, and since that flip I tend to accomplish 90-95% of the goals I defined by the end of the calendar year.
I do a quick check in each quarter, and in June I do a full audit to see if I need to recalibrate or re-prioritize anything on the list to make sure each goal is still relevant and attainable. There is nothing wrong with pivoting if something you wished for is no longer serving you. Life is a continuous self-discovery and the only thing that is important is genuinely listening to yourself and overcoming any fear or anxiety that is keeping you from that level of authenticity in your outward life.
I have multiple sections, or categories, that each get their own short list of goals that I want to achieve. I try to keep it “realistic” in terms of quantity and attainability, but I am also a big believer, and proven experiencer, of Manifesting, Alchemy, and Law of Attraction. This has played a huge role in my achievements as I’ve dialed in on that over the past few years.
This year I am updating my language again, to encapsulate the Manifested life I want to achieve in the upcoming year. Some of the things I put on my list the past 2 years I considered “stretch goals”, and some of the things on my list I had no control over, like a specific credit score number that I wanted to hit. Not only did they come to fruition, they came forth even grander than I could’ve predicted. I know this was a bit of a combination from my manifestation practice, as well as a little naïveté or doubt of what I was capable of accomplishing, or perhaps, simply not dreaming big enough. So it felt more appropriate to upgrade this practice to New Years Manifestations. Huzzah! Let the magic unfold!
I started doing categories in 2018 and this has been a work in progress, but the intent was to simplify so it doesn’t become this endless unattainable list. With categories, I can pick 2-3 things per category and it isn’t overwhelming because they are usually related to the greater good of that category. In 2018 I called it Health, Hearth, Heart. If it didn’t fall under one of those categories then it wasn’t worth recording because those were the areas I wanted to focus my attention in 2018.
In 2019 I think I forgot about my categories in a way or maybe I just got really statistic focused because my list is shown as quarters: Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4. I think this is where I started feeling the call to have regular check ins with myself so not to fall into the well known trap of going all in for January and then throwing it all out the window by February. I wanted to make sure I was holding myself accountable. This strategy is also great for breaking things up into bite sized chunks which can prevent overwhelm if you have a really big goal to hit by the end of the year.
I should mention, I start drafting the resolutions for the upcoming year in November and solidify in mid December. This gives me ample time to consider if it’s something I genuinely want or if it is fleeting. As my practice develops, my goals tend to compound over time so this process has been getting easier each year.
For 2020 I reverted to the category idea but I only had 2 main areas that I wanted to focus heavily on: finance and fitness. I also had a monthly travel plan that was adjunct to my goals, but did not make it onto the actual New Years Goals List because I decided to clump it into the finance section. You need money to travel right? Of course that was all squelched with the pandemic, however, it actually catapulted the financial goals I had on the list. It worked out in unexpected ways, particularly with improving my discipline around budgeting and cash flowing my adventures as opposed to going into debt for them. 2020 was also the year I became consumer debt free and I wouldn’t trade that accomplishment for anything.
In 2021 I really finessed the category concept and I may repeat this for 2022 because it still resonates with what I want to put my attention on: Finance, Wellness, Creative, Travel. I decided to make travel it’s own category because it is much more than a budget line. Travel gives me life. It is a spiritual experience for me in many ways. Immersing in other cultures and interacting with the incredible humans on this planet, especially where “old world values” still thrive and people aren’t inundated with commerce the way we are in the US, is affirming as a global citizen of this planet. To witness humanity at its finest, participate in genuine community, dance, break bread, and share laughter is everything. Simply put, I feel more human when I travel, and this is a huge relief to my sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system, among many, many other benefits.
Wellness will always be on my list moving forward. Historically my self care has been the last of my priorities but no longer. You can not fill from an empty well. I will give to myself first in order to better serve the world. This comes in many forms and will focus on all things mind, body, spirit. Run a race every quarter, practice meditation, optimize nutrition, keep a gratitude journal…these types of things are crucial for a life well lived.
On this blog you will see that the Finance section is under the Wellness category. This is by design. Financial wellness is a part of that larger equation. If you are stressed about money or your future, it is harder to care for your body and your mind. Financial stress can deplete everything, above and beyond what a spa day could give you. Sure, with meditation and affirmations you can rise above but that is easier said than done. Coming from the deep, dark poverty that I was raised in I can say first hand it is hard to even consider mediation when you are straining to put food on the table or keep shelter over your head. There is a difference between thriving and surviving, and surviving doesn’t leave room for much else. The pursuit of financial independence is a wellness practice as much as a self preservation practice. Since it is more tactile and nuanced, however, I give it its own category for a New Years reset.
Whether you call it New Years Resolutions, Goals, or Manifestations, it is a great practice for personal growth. If you miss and it’s still important you can try again. In 2015 I was in burnout, I was scatter brained, and I felt lost. I made a resolution for 2016 to “Simplify My Life”. That was it. That was my only resolution that year. I dove all in and you know what I found out? Things had gotten pretty complicated. In order to actually simplify my life, I had alot of things to close out and re-prioritize. I made the same resolution for 2 more years before I felt like I had accomplished my goal. And I have no shame in my time frame. Persistence is the key. It’s not about checking something off a list, it’s about growth. Pure and simple.
I hope seeing my process and structure is helpful and gives renewed hope that New Years Resolutions do not need to be flighty or fantastic. It’s just an aid for designing your life to be exactly as you wish it to be. I’ll be digging into my 2022 Manifestations soon so stay tuned. What are some resolutions, goals, manifestations you want to energize next year?
YES, YOU
Wherever you are on your journey
even if it is day 1
or just starting to take your first step
whatever your journey entails
you are not too late
you are not too far behind
you are not inferior
you are deserving
you are amazing
you are love
you are a force
you can do anything
Dlux Staple Groceries…& Mindset
I planned to do a zero waste and no spend year for 2020. I was moving into my own place near Lake Merritt in Oakland and ready start the year fresh with goals I had been taking baby steps on and was now ready to fully submerge myself into.
Like all well laid plans and new years resolutions that year there was a bit of a disruption to most people’s plans when the pandemic hit and we went into quarantine. I tried to stick to my goals but the first few months was such mental gymnastics that I decided to focus on less lofty goals and just focus on my mental and physical health until I could concentrate on how much waste I was producing with a clear head.
Despite the fact that the media was reporting a few weeks of quarantine, I knew immediately in my gut that it would go much longer than that. While I still knew very little about the nature of the issue at hand, it was just that gut instinct that told me I needed to focus on my mental health and emotional wellness and prepare to be in quarantine until the end of the year.
Of course we ended up with more than my instinct could’ve bargained on by the end of 2020, and here we are about to enter the last quarter of the year of 2021 and I’m just attempting to consider some of these former goals. I’ve been steadily chipping away but I’m ready to go all in again.
In order to organize myself, I wanted to put some focus on the area where I notoriously break my budget. I am still nuancing the numbers between groceries and take out to create a budget that is realistic but still frugal enough that I can put that “extra” money towards savings and investments.
Before you judge me for being too harsh on myself I’d like to point out that this is exactly how I finally became consumer debt free in August 2020. I find frugality challenges to be fun and healthy and I don’t deprive myself. I always make sure to budget for fun and flexibility. A budget isn’t a punishment and.in fact, it gives you way more financial freedom than life without a budget which only results in endless debt. Debt is the real prison. Let that ish go. Becoming debt free is liberating AF and 100% worth the sacrifice, speaking from experience.
In addition to controlling finances, I also want to have zero food waste in my kitchen. Currently I compost and am pretty good at doing “pantry challenges” when things are getting close to expiration, but I still have let some food rot by not being mindful and intentional of all of my purchases.
The other perk to using this staple grocery list as my guide is that I have found that I was getting burnt out on trying new recipes all of the time, and instead have been leaning into creating mouth watering versions of my favorite recipes. For example, I started making overnight oats last year and fell in love with this easy, quick, and healthy recipe. I tweaked and perfected it for a year and a half and now it is so incredibly easy and delicious, and works great for breakfast and for snacks. I want all of my main recipes to be that yummy that I would desire it for any meal any time.
SO for the categories – the ones that are a general category, like “fruit”, can be rotated as long as I have 1 in inventory at any given time, like “strawberries”. If it is shown as a specific food, like avocado, then it means I must have avocado at all times and can not be subbed for any other food in it’s category. Yea, I have a few obsessions, avo being one of them! A slash means “or” at time of purchase, but if I already have one and I am still within my budget for the month, then I can purchase the other on my weekly shopping. For example, Stubbs BBQ lasts me a while since I only make BBQ Tofu occasionally, so that doesn’t prevent me from gettings Salsa on my next shopping trip.
Surprise! Turns out I can not pick only 5 vegetables and have double that on my rotation. What are rules for other than to be broken! The good news is these never go to waste. I am obsessed with all 10 of these foods. Plus I am just not going to skimp on the most important food group. Fiber, micronutrients, macronutrients, antioxidants, vitamins, minerals – all inclusive, what’s not to love? I’ll take this category in abundance thank you very much!
While most of these are year round staples for me, there are a few wild cards on there that are seasonal so I’ve focused on preparing for the upcoming fall and winter season for those types of warming seasonal foods. Perhaps I’ll update this going into next spring and summer where something like watermelon tends to be a staple for me in the summer season as opposed to root veggies and pumpkin everything.
What do you think? Are there any items on this list that you think are gross, excessive, or downright must haves for your list? What are your die hard staples that you can’t live without?
EARTH DELIGHTS
Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.
You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
Let there be spaces in your togetherness.
Yesterday is but today’s memory, and tomorrow is today’s dream.
I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.
Work is love made visible.
If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work.
Khalil Gibran
Golden Gate Marathon Malala Fundraiser
Malala is one of my all time greatest heros. Against incredible odds she continues to stand up for girls’ rights for education, even after being shot in the face in close range by the Taliban.
The Malala Fund is working for a world where every girl can learn and lead and I am here for it! With more than 130 million girls out of school today, we’re breaking down barriers that hold girls back.
I am dedicating my Golden Gate Half Marathon & Training to raise funds for all girls to have safe and equitable access to education in their communities.
Please help me #run4edu by donating to My Malala Fund Campaign today! No donation is too small. Together we can make a better world and lead with love.
Girl On Film
The Girl on Film is me, on my birthday, at Silk City in Philly when I was young enough to not even dare go out before 10pm at the earliest. I was maybe 23 years old.
I met this cute nerdy photog that night and he snapped this instant of me, the flash blowing out my face in the dark bar. I immediately loved that it was me, but it wasn’t. Without a face I had no identity. At the height of my creative lifestyle, this was pure poetry in my mind. It made the gent even cuter.
I went to take a sip of my Yuengling lager and got bumped simultaneously by an anonymous passerby in the crowd, which so easily occured due to the tight shotgun shape of the retro diner redesigned into a nightclub. That little elbow bump thrust my arm and the bottle too quickly to my mouth, chipping my front tooth. Luckily it was so tiny it was unnoticeable, but I could feel it with my tongue, and proceeded to do so obsessively all night.
Years later I put the photo in a frame with this found metal honeycomb scrap to add an extra level of creativity. I never kissed the boy.
LIFE CHANGING MORNING ROUTINE
HAPPY 2 MONTH ANNIVERSARY
Exactly 2 months ago – once and for all – I found MY WHY and transformed, literally overnight, into a morning person. ☀️
To be fair, this personal development has taken years and countless failures and rebounds, but as I described in this post, I did have an immediate transformation that sealed the deal for this morning routine once and for all. Find your why and you can develop a morning routine like this too!
~~~ Here’s The Breakdown ~~~
5:30am Wake Up Walk Pup
I used to shuffle out of bed and whine, or more realistically, hit the snooze button 82 times, but now I usually jump up a minute or 2 before my alarm goes off. This is how my energetic rockstar pup @VenusVegaDlux wakes up too so we go right for a quick squat after heading down 4 flights of stairs from our condo in the sky.
5:45am Brush Teeth
After Venus relieves herself, I brush my teeth. Not in the street, silly! We went back upstairs already. I use a Philips Sonicare electric toothbrush. Sorry I’m not on that obvious minimalist #bambootoothbrush tip, but I have crappy teeth and I need a workhorse to keep these dudes happy. I need to figure out how to recycle the heads like they do in Russian supermarkets, but at the moment I extend the life of the used heads by using them for cleaning or painting projects. I change them quarterly so I’m only a bad person 4 times a year. I’ve had this toothbrush for about 6 years now so at least the body is lasting a long time. I also love it because I can travel without the charger and the battery lasts over a week. The charger is tiny so I’ll bring it if I’m travelling longer than a week.
5:50am Rose Water Amethyst Facial
I never gave myself facials even when I was sleeping in, not even at night. Truth is I was notoriously bad at self care. I just figured if I’m going to be awake this early I should give myself something to look forward to and I came up with this little gem. It’s so easy I do it with my eyes closed, literally.
The first step actually starts with clearing my nasal passages. I’ve been doing this ever since the Pandemic started as a way to cleanse so it’s a vital part of my daily routine now. I use Now Activated Nasal Spray and it really is a game changer. Since I do breathing exercises in my morning routine (priming and meditation), this gets all that gunk out of the way ahead of time. Inflammation seems to be worse in the morning for me so it helps to start off with this cleansing routine. When I sought this product out, I was not even sure it existed. Years ago, 2004 to be exact, I was traveling in Brasil and started to feel a nasty cold coming on. I was at Copacabana Beach with a gal I met from Italy, and she literally told me to snort the ocean. As much as I was dumbfounded by what she was suggesting, she was dumbfounded that I didn’t know about this. Her grandmother showed her when she was a little girl and they’ve been warding off colds for generations this way. I did it. It was awkward, and totally worked. I got a head rush, felt the salt water drip down the back of my nasal passages, and the cold symptoms completely vanished. This spray is the next best thing if you can’t snort the ocean every morning.
Next I do a quick cold water rinse on my face and pat dry. Then I take a cotton ball and clean my face with TN Dickinson’s Witch Hazel. (I compost the cotton ball). Next I spritz my face with Rose Water. Did you know that food grade products undergo far greater regulations than topical products? Your skin is your biggest organ so anything you put on your skin should be no worse than anything you eat, but the industry doesn’t work that way. Rose water products are on trend and you have the price tag to prove it. Topical beauty products not only cost more, but they have other ingredients that are hard to pronounce (aka bad for your health). I’ve always had a 100% natural skin care routine and I’ve had nearly flawless skin as a result so I don’t buy into that beauty market ish. Save your dollars and your skin and get some classic food grade Rose Water and put it in your own spritzer bottle. Cortas was my go-to but I think they are onto me because the unit price has gone up so I’m trying this one by Sadaf next. I bought these bottles from Amazon for my DIY products.
Finally, I use this Amethyst Roller. I know Jade and Rose Quartz are all the rage but I’m a diehard rebel and an amethyst gal. I’m still moving everything around that needs to be awakened so I love this thing even if I’m not trending. I keep it in the freezer so it feels incredible to roll over my fresh dewy morning skin. I also roll over my thyroid to help keep her functioning well. Cold therapy has been one of my #1 tools in fighting inflammation, and inflammation is the source of all disease so if you can keep that at bay, you’re winning.
5:55 am Lemon Water
Right before my workout, I drink 20 ounces of water with a tablespoon of lemon juice. First thing in the belly and great for the gut! It’s hydrating, starts you off with a burst of Vitamin C, balances your PH, produces collagen, stimulates the digestive system, is renowned in Ayurvedic medicine, and so much more. Check out this Mind Body Green Article for more info on the health benefits. I was making my own fresh squeezed for a while but peeling lemons was not my jam and a bottle of pure, organic, lemon juice is actually not very expensive. I decided to pay myself first and free myself from this particular chore. I’ve been using Sprouts Organic Lemon Juice for a few months and it’s perfect. There are ZERO additional ingredients other than organic lemon juice and currently retails at 25 cents per ounce. I’ve also enjoyed Lakewood and Santa Cruz Organic Lemon Juice. All 3 are high quality, affordable, and last a long time in the fridge.
6am Kinrgy
By far the highlight of my morning! I love waking up to dance and elemental connection. The Kinrgy method uses movement, breathwork, and the 4 elements of Earth, Fire, Water, and Air to center you and give birth to your own distinct expression. This was another gift I gained from UPW and it brings me incredible joy and energy to start my day. The guides are incredible and weave poetry, activism, and soliloquies into the workout which is an incredible bonus. I’m so so grateful for this daily practice.
6:45am Priming
Next I do TR’s Priming Exercise, which helps bring focus and intentionality to my day. I also use this time to send healing energy to people that need it, and visualize my future vision of and for myself.
7am Meditation
I do a 10 or 15 minute morning meditation. I can not express what a huge impact this has been on day. To start feeling this grounded and centered is something I haven’t experienced regularly since my career took off. I’m so happy to feel back in my body this way. I’m OBSESSED with @RoxyTalks. I have been wanting to do a video series of my spoken word poetry and some mantras that I’ve written and her style is almost exactly what I envisioned for that project. Roxy is A VIBE. Right now for the morning sesh I’m mostly toggling between Self Love Affirmations and Positive Morning Affirmations, but really all of her meditations and affirmations rock so just pick whatever jives with you.
7:15am Walk Pup
Venus just had a quick pee when we woke up at 5:30am so now we go do the real business.
7:25am Cold Shower
YES. I am actually doing this. I listened to Melissa Urban‘s podcast Do The Thing Ep 34: Cold Showers with Ed Sheeran and a YEAR later still had the anything but that mentality. After visualizing the worst case scenario of how my body would continue to decline, continue become harder to heal, continue to become stiffer and more painful, if I continued to not DO THE WORK to cure myself, I finally got smacked in the face that time was moving on without me. I refuse to live the rest of my life in a sick or suffering manner. I’ve come too far for that. So I started with baby steps, 2mm at a time, 2º at a time. By some standards my cold shower is still a baby step but it is serving me and I’ll do it in my own time. You should too. You make the rules. You design your life.
My method is I take a warm shower for 3 minutes and just enjoy it, then I use my 1 minute timer on my watch and shift the water temperature just past the middle where it’s just below luke warm and a little colder. For the second minute I move it another 2 degrees colder. That’s it. 2 minutes of cold water. I jump around and sing and howl and I’m SO ALIVE afterwards. It has flushed my inflammation and brain fog down the toilet! I don’t want to be sick ever again, so I put my full mind and intention into this 2 minutes. I am here to thrive. I am here to live a beautiful life.
7:30am Celery Juice
I drink 8 ounces of celery juice while I air dry. I’m currently doing an experiment to figure out how much celery I need to prep to juice 3-4 days in advance. Remove the barriers preventing you from your good habits. I don’t squeeze lemons and celery at 6am. I do it ahead of time, usually at night. I just bought Suja Celery Juice for the first time so I’m going to try that out this week and compare it to my fresh squeezed Celery Juice. I upcycle my Synergy Kombucha bottles to prep my celery juice in advance, so I’m currently measuring this all out and calculating in order to honor my time if I can. I know Suja isn’t JUST celery so I’m thinking on that, but I’m not totally against it either. Again, I’m still in the research stage. I’ll probably land somewhere in a combo style.
7:35am Coffee Time
The big reward! My morning really flows. Although it sounds like a lot, I’ve removed barriers and made these steps as easy and seamless as possible so I wouldn’t get discouraged and give up. I feel so accomplished at this point that a warm cup of joe with creamy nutpods is the perfect gift to soak it all in. I am taking a break from my superfood coffee recipe. I was using Laird’s for a while but they all have sugar in them and I’m not about that life. Sugar will ruin you inside and out. If there is only one change you make in your whole life, quit sugar.
*Stay tuned for Superfood Coffee recipes, although it may just have to live on in my smoothies if I don’t come up with a good solution.
* Check out Ritual De Cafe
7:35am Read Morning Brew
I’ve been reading Morning Brew as my daily news burst for about a month now and it’s absolutely perfect. I love how succinct and witty it is and I can get a quick daily digest before I get whisked away into my day. I get briefed on the latest 24 hour activity of the stonks, world news, politics, vaccine updates, and even surprises like bypassing the waiting list for @Masterworks. Check out my post on my recent purchase of Yayoi Kusama’s Pumpkin, 1990 and my Masterworks membership.
HMU if you want a link to Morning Brew. It rad.
8am Slay The Day
YOU KNOW WHAT I DO. GO SLAY!
utopiadreamscape.com 