Learning to Lighten Up

Another way that I've been learning to lighten up is by really tidying up, which means mainly learning to discard. The book, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, has been instrumental in this process.

Yesterday, I began to work through my clothes, discarding everything that doesn't "spark joy" and only keeping what's left. It's now a joy to get dressed because I choose from only things I love. 

One of the best parts of this experience was that the clothes I discarded just disappeared! Well, what really happened was that several of my female friends brought over a surprise birthday cake for my birthday. As we stood by the almost barricade of bags by the door, I asked if anyone wanted to look through some clothes. They ended up taking every bag with them! I secretly had hoped someone would just take them off my hands, and before I knew it, the floor was clear. 

I'm beginning to believe there is magic in tidying. As we are willing to shed what is no longer a part of our lives, the universe stands up to help us in this process. By letting go, we make room for our lives as they are, not as they were or as we thought they should be. 

...and Now, the Good News! (Part 1)

Around the time that the "bad news" began (mid-February), I had a simultaneous occurrence of good news.

I have always dreamed of opening my own healing center. At the beginning of this year, I decided to make the slow movement towards making this all possible, in time. I recognized that the first step would be to make some additional income through renting out my current treatment room. I decided that I was ready to find someone in preparation for creating the healing center of my dreams.

But the thing was, I didn't really want to put an add on craigslist and solicit to strangers. Ideally, I wanted to find someone that I possibly already know and could trust. Someone that had good energy and intentions and who's goals matched mine so we could work on building something together. I didn't really have anyone in mind, but I did desire for this person to appear sooner rather than later.

So I was driving to work one day in early February, thinking about these things, and I said to the universe, "Universe, I really want to make this happen but don't want to put an add on craigslist, and I would like it to happen soon. I'll give you a month. If no one appears within 30 days, then I will put out an add. But I will give you the chance to send someone first."

No kidding, two weeks later I received an email in my inbox with the subject "New LMT." The email was from Deran, the brother of a friend of mine who was recently licensed in massage and was asking if I was interested in taking a new therapist under my wing. Well, hot damn, I thought, my request totally worked! Deran and I had actually had a phone conversation about 6 months before when he was interviewing me for a project while he was still in massage school. I didn't know that I did already know this new therapist, but then I asked and there he was. Magic.

So as of a few months ago, Deran officially joined the Upward Spiral team. We are spiraling upward and onward and it turns out that this is just the beginning of a whole new project for Upward Spiral. More soon!