Twenty Soul-Feeding Things to do at a Six-Foot Distance

During this time of quiet chaos that the world is facing, many of us are finding our own lives slowed significantly down, with higher anxiety and lowered motivation. We’re collectively in this limbo state, waiting for an indefinite end, and most likely either bored or a little stir crazy. I’m personally pretty tired of seeing people say that “if you don’t come out on the other end of all of this with a new hobby/skill/business you’ve wasted your time,” because that’s a pretty massive generalization as well as pretty offensive to people who are simply doing their best with what they have, where they are. My goal here is just to provide you with a few ideas for things that will feed your mind, as well as your soul, and are accessible and affordable. So—here are 20 of the things I would recommend (these are all things I am doing, or have plans to do during this time) for some feel-good quarantining.

1. Guided meditations. These are free on youtube, take as little as 5-10 minutes, and are a really great way to introduce yourself to the process of mindfulness.

2. Deep cleaning your space. I’m sure this is pretty overstated, but there’s always something small to further freshen your home. Have you washed your couch cushions yet?

3. Switch up your workout routine—get creative with ways to get your body burning. I’ve been utilizing the stairs outside my apartment for some killer leg workouts. Yoga is great always, but I’ve been finding it more beneficial to do a HIIT sesh to get all the stagnant energy out and wear my muscles out.

4. Journal. You’ll be surprised at the things that come out of you when you allow some free flow on paper.

5. Attempt a fancy meal with the random ingredients that you’ve likely compiled recently. Light some candles and make it a date, with your roommates, partner, or solo.

6. Read the book that’s been collecting dust on the shelf for years.

7. Have drinks over zoom/facetime with your friends! It’s like the bar, but dirt cheap and in your sweats.

8. Have a paint-nite class for one. Find a tutorial online, and paint or draw something just for fun. Alternatively, download and print some of those zen coloring pages and cover your walls with them.

9. Go through your closet, Marie Kondo style. Try everything on, and get a pile ready for selling or donating once thrift stores open back up.

10. FULLY watch the sun rise or set (depending on what time you’re awake). From beginning to end.

11. Get fully ready for.. literally no reason. If makeup is your thing, do a full beat. Once you feel like a 10/10, take pictures. Dance around. Have a date night in the living room.

12. Learn how to make cold brew coffee.

13. Find a hiking spot near your home. Unless you are sick or have symptoms, you can leave your home—just stay away from other people! Nature is so healing.

14. Nail down a good skincare routine.

15. Filter your social media; unfollow what/whoever doesn’t inspire you and delete apps you don’t use.

16. Go through your camera roll, your electronic storage, your computer, and delete everything that you don’t want to keep. Sort the rest for easy access.

17. Practice mantras and affirmations in the mirror, or write them down and stick them all over your home, or scream them at the wall! It feels stupid until you notice the difference in makes.

18. Create a habit tracker, so that you can check off daily rituals and have a sense of accomplishment and goal orientation.

19. For the love of god, drink an adequate amount of water. Track that too if you feel like it.

20. Write a list of all the things you can’t wait to do once we return to a sense of normalcy, and then write a list of all the things you’ve been grateful for, and values you’ve held close during this time.

And, if you do none of these things, be easy on yourself. Doing your best sometimes means getting through the day and nothing more. We’re all going through it together. Community is strengthening, love is more freely given, and gratitude is abundant. We will always remember what it is to be surrounded with each other in communal spaces, the gift that is the support system of family (whether biological or chosen), and our oneness with the earth and all its inhabitants. We can carry that forward with us, for the betterment of us all.

Where's your Heart at?

I feel like social media has allowed us to mask the fact that we don't have to have it all figured out. Algorithms are constantly churning up curated images of perfectly displayed lives where everyone smiles, color tones are balanced, and imperfections are FaceTuned and Photoshopped away. Gucci belts and square-jawed Instagram boyfriends run rampant, and wavy bronde (that perfectly balanced dye job between brown and blonde) hair makes the whole news feed look like one giant ocean of having-it-all-together. Even the babies are aesthetically dressed, for god’s sake.

I’m not writing this for the purpose of hating on anyone or their lifestyle. Even if I were a hater, that wouldn’t be on them—they would continue living their lives this way because (hopefully) it’s a lifestyle that makes them happy. I love color-balancing my pictures and facetuning out all the random bruises I acquire, so I’m no martyr in this situation. And I know we’ve all heard shit like “comparison is the thief of joy” and “social media is a highlight reel” so I’m not here to preach that we’re just all humans, either. I’d hope we all know that.

My question—and it’s a loaded one: in a world where we try so hard to put forth this perfect, untouchable version of ourselves at all times, do we truly know where our hearts are at?

I ask this to you, but also to myself, because I sometimes try even HARDER to make everything look all good and great and perfect when I feel lost or unsure in life. I know I’m not the only one who does this. It’s this mental game where we’ve almost been conditioned to seek external validation through social media when we’re trying to justify why we’re in the situation we’re in. We want to feel like we’re living a life that others can look at and be inspired by, even though it may pain us to be living in the reality.

Again, I’m NOT saying that posting pictures that you’re proud of (be it your body, your house, your family, etc.) means that you want attention/validation/are a miserable piece of shit. Social media is an amazing platform for creatives and if that makes you HAPPY and you LOVE it, that’s amazing. I’ll just full-circle it back to the question: where is your heart at?

I used to have a severe eating disorder. I fed the discomfort by posting pictures of my body/workouts/”clean meals” because people would like it and comment that it was “goals” or that I was inspiring. I felt like shit, but social media, and the validation that came with it, was a band-aid for my emptiness. After I finally snapped out of it (shoutout to my therapist, what a queen) I realized I was a huge fucking fraud. I was literally feeding people UNATTAINABLE AND UNSUSTAINABLE IDEALS while hiding the fact that my career, relationship, and health were all blowing up in my face as a result. Most importantly, though, my heart was not in a loving, centered space. It was suffering, and I was lying.

So, I know that was a pretty heavy example, but I challenge you to truly dig deep and find out where your heart lies in every aspect of your life, before you share it with the world. It takes practice, and lots of introspection. Full disclosure—ever since I got back from Hawaii I’ve been trying to heed my own advice to figure out what my heart needs, as well as being transparent in the fact that while I go on beautiful vacations and have amazing experiences that make up the majority of what I post online, I’m in a tough and confusing patch of the journey currently. It all ebbs and flows. But I can curate the shit out of it, make it look all nice and throw it to the hungry likers, or I can get ugly with it and keep it real (while still putting a nice preset on the picture).

And when you’re consuming someone else’s content: always take it with a grain of salt.

Xx,

Anna

The Guilt Trip

As a child, there was nothing worse than the feeling that you were backed into the corner, forced to confront the fact that there’s a chocolate chip cookie squished inside the fist behind your back by your demanding mom, whose scolding would wash you over with a feeling of shame and guilt (and leave you much more calculated for your next heist, should you choose to try again). Guilt is a gnarly feeling that we know on a first-name basis by about age 5, when we begin to learn the difference between right and wrong, morals, and so on. But then there’s all the tack-on later in life.

Through societal conditioning, religious beliefs, the “success” ideal, and relationships built, we learn all of a sudden that there are hundreds of things to feel guilty for: doing too much. Not doing enough. Being tired. Cancelling plans. Ending a relationship, or wanting to start a new one. Eating chocolate. Buying shoes. Wearing something we love. Sleeping in. Going out. Saying no. Saying yes. Saying anything with conviction.

Do we realize how insane this is? That we can twist just about anything and feel bad about it? That guilt feels like human nature, and it’s actually a bonding point in some cases? That people are adept at manipulation because they can trigger pain points resulting in guilt? That we can do it to ourselves, subconsciously, because every direction we turn, someone is marketing a lobby against the feeling of emotional homeostasis and advocating against feeling OKAY AS YOU ARE RIGHT IN THIS MOMENT?

It’s a trip.

And so begins the process of what we allow to affect us.

I believe there are four different types of guilt:

1. The kind that just hangs around and nags with no substantial reason—the kind you want to squash with one of those whack-a-mole hammers. This is the one that used to pop up every time I would spend more than $20, no matter how big my paychecks were or how much I needed what I was buying. It comes without reason and seems to exist only to make someone feel shitty.

2. The kind that manifests as the result of an unresolved or painful situation; plausibly the only “healthy” form of guilt (within reason). This is the one we learn as a child—the kind that comes from a biiiiig fuck up, a hurtful action, or as a precursor to remorse. This kind can also get out of hand, as there’s a fine line between feeling this guilt and beating yourself up excessively for it.

3. The kind that is placed on us by another individual for manipulation purposes. When a person knows how to use guilt in others as a way to get what they want from you, it can be dangerous. I was talking to a friend recently about how her mom did that to her all the time in order to persuade her to do what her mom felt was best. I’ve experienced this one personally through the teachings of certain organized religion.

4. The residual kind that results from wishing an outcome could have been different. This one is useless, as actions have already been taken. Sometimes it sticks around even after all the ends are tied and a situation has been moved on from. It’s the kind that waits around for us to throw a pity party, and is the first in attendance.

The ways to combat guilt obviously depend on the situation, but I’ve collected a few remedies to keep in my back pocket which have truly helped me to diffuse the self-sabotage in early stages. Begin by thinking about upbringing. I was raised in a religious household whose entire ethos revolved around making good choices (or else you’ll go to hell) and following the path dictated by the church. I was also raised to be extremely cautious, stingy, even, with money. My parents were always looking at my bank balance as a teenager, grilling me about the $4 coffee I’d bought the previous Tuesday and telling me how much I was always wasting my paychecks (cut to me feeling horrible in adulthood every time I swiped my card). Once I really dug into the conditioning I’d been exposed to since infancy, I was able to unpack the reasons why I was lugging around so much heavy guilt.

A lot of guilt stems as symptom of society as well. We are shown unreasonable standards of living, be it through appearance, productivity, or accomplishment. Compassion is key here. A lot of weight is lifted just by radical self-acceptance and admittance into the “non-perfect” category (where we truly all exist, anyway). Talk to yourself as if you were speaking to a 5-year-old version of you. It’s a lot harder to be a bitch to a 5-year-old. If you’re allowing someone to puppet-master your actions, recognize it and calmly step back into your power, while making it clear that you will not let this be the case moving forward. This takes some thick ass skin, but no one wants to manipulate someone who states that he/she will not play the games.

And if there is work left unfinished—be real with yourself here—get it done. Say the apology. Burn a bridge. Restart the goal. Buy the vegetables. Cut the toxicity. Honor the past, and use it as a lesson. But if there really is nothing that needs to be done, or can be done, release it. Write a letter if you need to, and then set it on fire. Feel the emotions as it burns, and then walk away without them.

If you are doing the best you can, affirm it. If you’re not, put the baggage down and use your newly free hands to get shit done.

Xx, Anna

Leaps of Faith

I’ve always been one to take major risks without a surefire plan. I’ve been very good at following what feels right intuitively, and making a situation work for me after diving in headfirst. So when an opportunity arises for me, I tend to take it as a sign and say yes to everything. I get my kicks from taking huge, scary chances on myself. I’m a bit of a gambler with life—which isn’t to say that I’m always confident and absolute with the choices I make. The reason it always works out for me, is the fact that I take leaps of faith instead of following my “fate.”

The difference between taking a leap of faith and letting fate be your guide as you walk through life is the amount to which you feel in control. A leap of faith feels grandiose, terrifying, and unsure. In my case, it often lights a fire under my ass, and I get extremely resourceful, confronting every aspect of the situation to see how I could possibly turn a question into a success story. In contrast, fate is a sort of double-edged sword that can almost corner a person into thinking that no matter their action, they will inevitably end up in the same place (so why try, right?). I’m not a fan of the concept of fate for this reason.

A few months ago, I took a giant leap of faith and switched career paths. I was in the Navy, not necessarily unhappy, but definitely unaligned and unfulfilled by the work I was doing. I knew I was cut out for more, and my skill set could be utilized so much more effectively elsewhere. I still get chills thinking about the way it unfolded—as my contract was wrapping up, I knew I needed to start looking towards my next step. I had four months left of active duty, and the I was out on my own. Making my own decisions again. With the pressure of finding a job. I was scared, but not desperate. I decided one night that the opportunity would come to me in divine timing, and all I had to do was be open to anything, essentially. No expectation, no demands.

The next night, it was there. The move. The opportunity. I was mindlessly scrolling through instagram, and I found someone I’d gone to high school with, who was living her absolute best life, traveling full-time and making a more-than-substantial living for herself by running an online business. I reached out (leap of faith #1) to ask her how she was doing this, how she had strayed so far from the norm and was really making it happen. She answered, I invested in myself (LOF #2) and started up my own. I decided that this was going to be it for me, that it was going to happen and success would unfold for me, as long as I showed up.

A month or so later, it was announced that there would be a business retreat in Maui, Hawaii, and that there would be almost 200 spots for people to come who were also business owners, entrepreneurs, globe-trotters, and manifestation wizards. The tickets were about to go on sale, I was about to be out of work, and I knew without question that I had to be there. I bought a ticket to the event within the first 30 seconds that they were live, and a flight two weeks later (LOF #3).

Last week was the event. My military career ended two weeks prior (divine timing, yet again) and without a steady paycheck coming in, I was about to go to Hawaii to meet a bunch of strangers and mastermind about business on the beach. Sounds crazy, I know. But something told me that hopping on the plane was the start of a massive projection into growth and a catalyst for the success I was looking to attract into my life.

And it was.

I totally transformed. I have never been so motivated, inspired, and moved in my life as I was on that island, surrounded by strangers who turned quickly into family. The generosity and gratitude were off the charts, and the collective energy was at such a high vibration that it was almost impossible not to be submerged in such a state of bliss and alignment. We spent the week growing businesses, climbing waterfalls, doing yoga, breathwork, and connecting. We shared stories, tropical fruit, laughter, and fears. We swam in the ocean and drank wine and reflected while the sun set. We hiked volcanoes and picked guava straight from the trees, acknowledging how provided for we were. We meditated, danced, and released intentions to a higher place. We all went through a sort of metamorphosis, together, and as I boarded my flight back to the mainland I realized, fuck, I will never be the same again.

While I love to live life on more of a whim and follow what feels right intuitively, it’s often difficult for me, and as someone prone to anxiety, I have had to really get down and dirty with my relationship with fear. It’s taken a lot of work, but I love where we’re at right now. I acknowledge my fear and respect it for trying to protect me, but I am also firm and don’t allow it to drive my decisions. We can walk hand-in-hand, but I call the shots. We’ve agreed that things are working out best-case scenario, and that life is always better when lived BIGGER. Living in fear is living small. Using fate as guidance is a cop-out. And leaps of faith always get you further than little, scared steps. It has led me into an incredible reality thus far.

Xx,

Anna

It’s Autumn (Internal Screaming)

The autumn equinox was a few days ago, and so began by favorite series of days * cue leaves falling in the background. * To completely embrace a stereotype, I look forward to this day months in advance, ready to cuddle up with a pumpkin-spice-something and an astrology book (I’m really trying to learn).

Just so we’re all up to speed here; there are two days during the year where the daylight and the darkness are equal in length, and they are the spring and autumn equinox (literally translated, means equal night.) The autumn equinox, in particular, awakens our animal instinct to hunker down, stock up on hearty soups and get cozy for the new few months. Historically, it caused a lot of stress for humanity of course—survival depended on whether or not warm shelter and food would be found. But with the rise of agriculture, we didn’t need to worry so much if we would make it through the winter, and thus the fall equinox became a cause for celebration of harvest and honoring the change in the seasons.

In ancient Greece, it was believed that the September equinox marked the day the goddess Persephone returned to the underworld. In China, the successful harvest of wheat and rice was celebrated on the equinox by making moon offerings. In Great Britain, an extravagant harvest festival was annually thrown, and modern paganism celebrates Mabon—the apprearance of the Welsh god of harvest—by honoring balance between the light + dark.

Across cultures and centuries, the beginning of the autumn symbolizes the acceptance of the darkness, both within and without, and gratitude for harvest and community. Some recommended ways to celebrate in your own home (besides turning all your decor orange) include:

• writing a gratitude list

• pouring a tall glass of a dry red wine

• meditation

• reading/telling stories of death and rebirth

• hosting a party honoring the light

• making comfort food (all the bread, all the mac n cheese)

• getting out and appreciating the art show that mother nature is hosting

The change of season is the perfect time to turn inward and reflect as we begin to slow down and hole up for the winter. My hope is that we’re all as excited as I am for the dropping of degrees and the rise of the coziness. If you’re not there yet, cinnamon candles and oversized flannels really help, I swear.

Stay warm!

Xx, Anna

The Length of a Life

I’m not a fan of the saying “life is short.” While I stand by the premise that decisions should be made (to an extent) from an emotional, heart-based standpoint, the timeline of a lifespan shouldn’t have to dictate that we follow our callings, be spontaneous, or take risks.

So here’s a hot take. Life is the quite literally the longest thing you will ever experience. From the moment you first open your eyes to the last time they close, you’re living your life. Yes, it ends—let’s not make it morbid. But the entire time your human body exists on this planet, your life continues. That being said, we can assume that we have an indefinite amount of time to make all the decisions, reach all the goals, and achieve the highest forms of ourselves. Therefore, the phrase “life is short” is essentially a means of justifying sporadic decisions to live the way we’d rather. Life isn’t short at all, we’re just highly evolved procrastinators.

The caveat to this, of course, is that time is relative and it’s all too easy to place oneself in the constricting box of comfort. What I mean by this, is that while each individual is experiencing a different reality than the next, the human race collectively decided (somewhat unconsciously) that there is only an allotted amount of “time” in which to accomplish something. This decision can either project one into a state of free-for-all-decision-making based off the idea that they are running out of time, or keep one stagnant with the mindset that they’ll get around to it later.

The real kicker here, is that there needs to be an equal balance of honoring a time frame and setting a specific date for a goal, and spontaneous decision-making. A real yin and yang. Yes, the concept of time is socially constructed, and a life can seem short if you let it, but thinking this way focuses more on the lack of time left in a life. This goes the other way too! Forever pushing off pipe dreams because there is time later is equally dangerous, because if there is always time later, this ensures that things will never be accomplished, and suddenly life “gets away from you.” Flash forward 40 years, you’re saying life was short.

Being that we know two facts: 1. life is our longest feat, and 2. we are living it right now, let these be your motivators to get after what is calling you, and make no excuses—not because life is short, but because life deserves to be lived.

Love you.

—Anna

Being a Beginner Again

Being a beginner is something I always used to dread worse than getting a really shitty haircut. Being at the bottom of the pack, being the one with the least know-how, having to jump over the learning curve and being frustrated at looking stupid or asking the same questions a million times or failing—over and over again. It’s an uncomfortable feeling; thus I (and the majority of the human race, being the magical and capable creatures that we are) had a tendency to avoid it at all costs. Cute.

Ego (by definition: the false self constructed by the mind) is a key player in our avoidance of what is unfamiliar and new. Being a beginner is essentially stepping into foreign territory, to which the ego responds by attempting to protect us from the possibility of being in a vulnerable place. In extreme cases, the fight-or-flight response is even activated if the brain senses a threat—real or otherwise. While the ego has our best interest at heart by trying to save us from these threats, it can end up preventing a lot of potentially amazing experiences from occurring, if given too much control.

I recently ended a long stretch of career, and went from knowing exactly how my weeks/days/hours would pan out, to having to plan out every hour in order to get an online business off the ground—and my success is completely dependent on how well the steps I take are working out. I’ve never run an online business before. I’ve never made a website, gained clientele, or tried to send a mass email (since the email chain days of the early 2000’s, where your mom’s life depended on it). All this to say, I’m still figuring it out! My ego was not stoked about it. In fact, it almost shut me down more than a few times. But the process of being so belligerently brand new and trust-falling into the universe has taught me so much about how to politely ask my ego to take several seats and just let me do my thaaaang.

Here’s the thing about being a beginner, though.

You’re already a fucking expert at it.

Yep.

Think about this for a second. When was the last time you were a beginner at something? Not on a mass scale, but just in everyday life. If you’re not lying to yourself, it would have been veryyyy recently. Have you ever gone to a new school? Chosen to further your education? Had a child? Started a new relationship? Picked up a promotion? Joined a gym? We are beginners all the time, throughout our whole lives. We have been beginning since we began. We haven’t ruled out the possibility of reincarnation, either, so you might have been beginning entire new lives out there with the cavemen thousands of years ago. I realize it’s a little out there, but doesn’t it put things in perspective? When there is a situation/opportunity to start something new, it feels terrifying, and you forget that you’ve ever tried something new in your life.

News flash!

Everything you’ve ever been good at is a result of beginning. You don’t come out of the womb an expert at anything. It’s just a little difficult to see things from this angle when you have your ego throwing a fit in your frontal lobe. But remember—the ego is there to protect your sense of “self.” It’s the guard dog of pride and vulnerability. I read a quote once that said something along the lines of “if you’re in a car with your fears/anxiety/doubts (AKA ego), acknowledge that they are there, and are welcome to sit in the passenger seat, but make it clear that you will be doing the driving.” In other words, appreciate the fact that you are protected, acknowledge and validate your feelings, but make it clear that your actions will not be dictated from an overpowered ego. And go start something new.

Love + light,

Anna

Staying Inspired

Inspiration is like making eye contact with a woman in a crowd, so stunningly beautiful that you have to physically pick up your jaw and look away to try to recover yourself. By the time you turn back to try and stammer a few embarrassing words to essentially thank her for existing in this world, she’s… gone. Disappeared into the sea of other people. You missed the opportunity, and now your heart is all achey-breaky.

If you are a creative by trade—or if you’ve ever had to use your creative muscles, for anything, at any point ever—then you’ll totally resonate with this. A surge of inspiration will hit you like a ton of bricks when you’re not looking for it, but the second you need to conjure some up, it’s nowhere to be found. Losing inspo can feel annoying, disassociating or even threatening if your career depends on it.

I personally think this is an ironic hoax, because we are literally walking star residue, living on this massive spinning rock in the middle of outer space. There’s always shit to be inspired by. It’s everywhere, all the time. Just floating around in the cosmos. But when the ego—protective and effective by nature—gets in the way of the curiosity that seeks inspiration, it can feel like being in a little bubble, completely separated from the magic that exists all around. From this separation comes the concentration on “the lack of inspiration,” and actually pushes any inspiration we might have had away.

So. To rectify the situation, there are three steps:

1. Allow yourself to open up to be able to receive

2. Awaken your curiosity

3. Hold on to the inspiration you find

The first step would be to do some mindset work so that the self-sabotage stops. To focus on the lack of something is to bring it into your life with greater magnitude. Instead, try telling yourself “inspiration is all around me, and comes to me without effort,” every day. Take the pressure of having to search for it out of the equation. It’s everywhere, remember? You don’t have to exhaust yourself trying to hunt down your own little slice.

Next, awakening curiosity can be done by whatever lights you up: spending time in nature, learning a new skill, spending time with connected people, listening to a podcast, redecorating your house, booking a trip, reading a book, taking a drive. If the mindset is right, this is the easiest part.

Finally, once you find a wisp of inspiration, hang tf on to it. If you sit around waiting for it to do the work for you, it will float right past you. You are the one who will write the books, make the paintings, come up with a great new marketing strategy. So you are the one who needs to act when it strikes you. A good way to keep yourself available to inspiration is to write notes (in a notebook, on a voice memo, scribbled on the back of your hand, whatever) so that you’ll have the skeleton of your idea to work off of once you’re ready.

A quote I love from Pablo Picasso goes, “inspiration exists, but it must find you working.” To stay inspired is to continue to work on yourself. Staying curious, learning, and constantly improving your consciousness will expand you to be able receive so much more. There will never be a shortage of inspiration so long as you are moving and growing.

Xx,

Anna

Getting Educated

Thinking back to the days when I was a freshman in college, eating hot pockets and one dollar mac and cheese for months on end because my minimum wage job wasn’t covering the basics anymore, it’s almost nostalgic—little naive me. I would go to the gas station and put a grand total of three dollars in my tank just to be able to drive five minutes away to campus. I was consistently scraping the bottom of the barrel just so I could pay rent and buy cat food while making tuition payments.

At this point in my life, I knew nothing about universal potential or energetic manifestation (they just don’t teach that stuff in high school). What I did know was this: that 17 and 18 year olds are thrown into massive life decision-making positions, taking out $100,000 loans for an education when just three months ago they had to ask permission to use the bathroom.

This isn’t the way the future was presented, though. It was all wrapped up in a shiny box as the thing to do—who were you if not educated by a decent university with great school colors—and everyone was doing it. It was the norm, so it wasn’t questioned, and we were sent off like little baby turtles going to sea in hopes of returning with a piece of paper that said we made it.

The problem is not the world of further education, though. College is a tool we add to the belt of knowledge and skills in the job field we choose to pursue. The problem is that school prepares you for more school. How to write an essay in MLA format. How to solve an algebraic equation, or take a test. In the event that you pass all the prelims two years later, you just might make it on to learn about the subject you signed up to major in. Is this good information? Yes! Is it necessary life knowledge—the kind that you’ll end up working at a crappy restaurant for the rest of your life without? No.

Can you imagine a school system that would have taught you that you can create your own reality? I can’t imagine that it would really be a good business model, because all the students slugging through intro to geology with their eyes half closed and no clear vision of the future would have realized that reality doesn’t have to be so black-and-white, and maybe they didn’t need to be there.

When I left college, I was scared, because I was raised conditioned to believe that without a degree, I was a guaranteed failure. It’s something that still crosses my mind fairly often. To buffer this fear, I promised myself that I would continue to learn on my own. I would teach myself what I wanted to learn, at my own pace, to make sure I was really absorbing the information. Without societal pressure and expectation to succeed at something I was unsure of/not passionate about, I was able to create the space I didn’t even know I needed, in order to expand who I was.

I’ve learned more than ever since leaving the classroom setting. I study science, psychology, and personal development in my free time. I’ve dipped a toe or two in the spiritual realm, and broadened my consciousness through manifestation work and meditation. I’ve learned some Sanskrit, the bare bones of web design, and how to run a business. I’ve read so many powerful books—even a couple from college classes I never went to—gained experience from traveling, and discovered who I am as an energetic being.

What I wish I would have known at 17 years old: an expanding knowledge and success are 100% correlating companions. College may or may not contribute to that expansion, but if it’s something that has to be forced, it’s not right. There are other ways to learn, and as long as growth is happening, it doesn’t matter where it’s coming from.

There isn’t just one right answer.

Xx, Anna

How to Balance with your Eyes Closed

My alternate, not as pretty title: "How to be productive when there are a million things to do and life is stressful.”

There is already a plethora of advice on this subject. With the amount of information coming at us on a constant, daily, hourly basis, yelling at us to DO IT ALL, SLEEP WHEN WE’RE DEAD, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. I’ll use myself as an example: I have been so far gone in my own shit storm of ~ things to do ~ that I sourced the internet for a solution to give me the secret to superhuman efficiency and maintaining a graceful balance. More often than not, the answers caused me even more overwhelm, and I’ve ended up feeling inadequate for still not having it all figured out even after reading Jennifer’s 12 techniques to just getting over it and writing to-do lists in 7 different colors of gel pen (no shade—just getting over things is cool. So are gel pens).

So. Balancing. Here we go.

To be able to juggle all important things in life, you must first be able to call yourself on your own bs. Are you exaggerating your reality to feel as though you have much more to do? Does it make you feel important to constantly be compromised? Do you tack things on your list that really aren’t of top priority, for the sake of staying in constant motion? Do you even fully expect yourself to get all of these things done, or is it just a daunting, out-of-reach list that gives you a reason to complain?

Once you figure out what your personal bs cocktail is, you can begin counteracting all the self-sabotaging actions and limiting beliefs you have about your own productivity, therefore nipping the overwhelm anxiety in the bud. For instance, if you like to exaggerate and feel busy, flip it around and write a list of things you have already accomplished today. If you write endless lists of things that need your “immediate attention,” scale it back and pick the 3 that really can’t wait. Be realistic with yourself.

To actually be in a productive balance, approach tasks at the beginning of the day with gratitude. Try replacing “things to do” with “I get to do ____.” it’s small, but it works. It’s also hard to play the victim when you’re on this wavelength.

Once your thoughts/emotions are flipped towards gratitude, the rest comes with a lot more ease. My personal recommendations for doing the thing(s):

Schedule only a few things per day (as few as physically possible!) so that it seems like less of a beast to tackle.

Schedule yourself things you enjoy too; this takes away the dread associated with task lists and ensures that you actually carve out time to take care of yourself. If you’re not doing anything in the day to lift yourself up, you’re basically inviting imbalance and burnout to come hang out.

B r e a t h e . It’s the one thing you can do anywhere, any time, to instantly get centered and clear your mind. None of that shallow shit, either. Deep breaths. Make time to meditate, if you can. All it takes is five solid minutes.

A final thought to end with—you aren’t always going to be in balance. You can’t always be a go-go-go-getting-everything-for-the-week-done-today-badass. Sometimes all you can complete in 24 hours is a good cry. And that’s fine. It’s human. What you can’t control is the fact that there will always be things to do, a list that shrinks and grows and reminds you that life needs your attention. What you can control is the mindset that gets you through.

Love + light always,

Anna