Blog: Is It Worth It? Let Me Work It.

The more I observe society the more commonality I find amongst us, especially, I feel, where people my age are concerned. We struggle with our with, our inherent value & worthiness that we bring with us into the world. I think growing up in the 90s & later, the 2000s, our worth was minimized. We were given participation trophies, shown that the work we put in didn’t matter, that we’d still receive the same level of prize. We were thrown into jobs as teenagers that had us working minimum wage jobs where that minimum wage never increased despite the value of a dollar decreasing. We were told we were special then shown the exact opposite.

Worth is definitely something that I’ve struggled with myself, I haven’t felt worthy of success or happiness or whatever else. Why? Lord knows, but something in me was ingrained to believe that I was only worthy of being considered a human being when I had found success. When I no longer struggled for money or had to fight to make headway in the music industry, only then would I be worth of the name I carry & the feelings of success or happiness I have.

I think a lot of that stems from growing up in church. No shame to the big man upstairs, I’m a fan, just not so much of the church world. When you’re living actively in the christian world there’s a lot of rhetoric around shame. We must be shameful of being inherently sinful or ashamed of the parts of ourself that some printing press decided should be included in the bible back in 1946 due to personal politics. We are told that we fall short of the glory of God simply by being born.

So of course so many of us struggle to find our worthiness. We’ve been told from a very young age that hard work & success are what brings us worthiness, but what happens when society doesn’t hold up its end of that bargain & your hard work just leads to more struggle instead of success or financial freedom? We’re told that if we want to be worthy in the eyes of the church or in the eyes of God that we have to hide parts of ourself or be ashamed of who we are. That no all loving God would accept you as they made you, that you have to fit the christian mold to be in God’s grace. That’s never sat right with me.

So many books that are published these days seek to resolve this issue. In “Rich As F*ck” Amanda Frances makes the bold claim that we are worthy of happiness & of our dreams simply because we are. You are worthy because you are. You were born worthy, raised worthy, & will die worthy of basic human rights, decencies, success, abundance, & happiness.

We, as millennials, definitely have a worthiness problem, fortunately it doesn’t seem to have carried over to Gen Z who appear to see right through the BS & are ready to come swinging. So many of us end up failing though simply because we do not believe that we are worthy of success. We self sabotage, we doubt, we make excuses instead of owning our inherent worthiness & just doing the damn thing with our chests puffed out & our head held high. We are so afraid of the fall that cometh after pride that we have completely depleted ourselves of any of it.

So here’s my challenge to you this week, in all honesty it’s probably something that’ll take more than a week but we gotta start somewhere don’t we? I want you to practice your worthiness. I want you to stop accepting the abuses you deal with at work or at home. I want you to demand to be paid what you’re worth. I want you to stand up for yourself & say “enough.” Why? Because you’re worthy. Why are you worthy? Because you are. Write it on your mirror, put a memo in your phone, put a slip in you car that says “I am worthy because I am.” & own it! Say it, repeat it, feel it, live it!

You are worthy because you are my lovelies, have a fantastic week, much love to you all!

-C

Blog: Understanding You Value

Hi Friends,

Happy Friday!…if that’s when you’re reading this, if not, Happy Whatever Day It Is For You!

I’m currently a part of a twelve week accelerator that brought up something very interesting I felt would fit immaculately as this week’s blog entry. This prompt was given to us in the form of a question. That question we were asked was to identify the three world that describe you, or as my friend Leena put it, the three reasons that you’re the person people pick up the phone to call when they’re needing X,Y, & Z in their life. What draws people to you?

I’m sure many of you saw that I posted the question on my socials to get feedback from those of you that follow me or know me because, after all, you/they know exactly what it is you/they get from me. I got a lot of really interesting responses & so many of you said so many things that warmed my heart to the core but at the end of it all, I had to narrow the list down to three.

I started by bunching any “like minded” words together to see if I could find a commonality between them or a culminating theme. Here’s what I came up with.

My three words are:

Serene, Considerate, & Curious

The beauty of these three words is that they’re tentative, constantly subject to change because, as we change & evolve, so too must our three words.

The point of this exercise allows you to begin to understand your value, to understand the things that you bring to the table as a human being that make others seek you out or that enrich someone else’s life.

I chose serene because many people say I have a calming presence about me, that I make them feel safe &/or secure. I am often seen as gentle or down to earth. The energy I give off is grounding & comfortable, it allows people to let their guard down & be 100% who they are, unapologetically.

I chose considerate because the word that popped up the most for me, from you all, was kind. I was also gifted words like sensitive, caring, loyal, thoughtful, & present. All of which I felt were summed up well in “considerate,” because at the end of the day what is kindness if not consideration for the feelings, emotions, needs, etc. of someone else on a human level?

My final word, to be honest, is still a bit of a work in progress. In all actuality my original work was “communicative” because I got words like strong, brave, leader, communicator; so I felt that enveloped those things, but the more I sat with it the less it felt right. I recently changed to “curious” because I am a lover of culture, a lover of art, I crave new & exciting foods, drinks, etc., I love travel & discovery, I love reading & learning new things. I love to have my mind blown. I like to try to be ahead of the curve & pushing the limits. New science excites me & new cultures invigorate me. I love sharing these experiences as well as I’m sure many of my friends & the many blogs I’ve written will tell you! Truly curiosity often gets the best of me in the best possible way.

Enough about me though, yeah? Let’s go further down this value rabbit hole.

What Is Your Value?

Each of us has many things that make us valuable, but what is specific to you? No one is valueless, so I’m going to go ahead & shut that down for a lot of you reading this right now, no one. Your value is what gives you an edge in life, it’s the aspects of yourself that make you interesting, that call the world to you, that make you feel alive, & make you feel important.

I’m genuinely curious, there’s that word again, to see what some of you think your specific value is so if it’s not too much & you’d like to drop what you think your three words are in the comments of this post or on whichever social you found this in I’d be delighted to know!

So often we are taught to diminish ourselves, to not be boisterous or to shrink away from the spotlight but I think that taught behavior can be harmful, especially where self esteem & confidence are concerned. I’m sure that a lot of you were raised, as I was, to embrace humility & to always be humble & I’m not at all saying those are bad traits, but we are often pushed too far into those traits to the point where it becomes damaging to our self image. In all honesty, I think a lot of the shrinking of self neuters us. We begin to feel worthless, like our little victories aren’t worth celebrating or even that the big victories aren’t worth celebrating because to do so would be seen as too bold & brazen. Our over abundance of humility is minimizing us & creating unhealthy beliefs around who we are, what we can accomplish, & what we are worth.

I, myself, was always taught “pride cometh before the fall” & I don’t entirely disagree; foolhardy & an overabundance of pride can absolutely be blinding & very much a turn off to the majority of people, but a little pride is totally healthy. We always crave the pride of others but never allow it for ourselves. We love to hear those close to us tell us how proud they are of us, but don’t reserve any of that emotion for ourselves. Be proud of who you are, be proud of the road that brought you here today because the person who climbed the mountain is worth being proud of. You’ve overcome your struggles, you’ve overcome your pain, & even if you’ve faltered be proud of your defeats & learn from them so that next time you can be proud of your victories.

We are luminous beings, all of us. So please, let the light of what makes you so incredibly special shine unabashedly bright!

As always, much love to you all,

Please let me know what your three words are!

-C

Blog: A Little Belief Goes A Long Way

Howdy folks!

How’s your day been? I’m sorry I missed you all last week,I’ve been busy, busy, busy in the best possible way! I was wracking my brain a little bit this evening on what to blog about after having finished a day of blogging for someone else. Then I thought, well, there it is!

I recently started a new job outside music/songwriting/what have you. It’s freelance work writing, I’m turning a podcast centered around production into a blog. The job is whenever I have the free time to do so or whenever my boss needs a blog to post & pays a livable wage! Imagine that! And I can’t help but feel like I manifested it into my life.

For those of you who were unaware I had to leave my previous freelance job at the beginning of COVID & was thankfully on unemployment up until recently. Our lovely, terrible excuse for a Tennessee Governor, Bill Lee, put a moratorium on the extension for unemployment benefits that was put into effect by the federal government. The date of this expiration being July 4th. Happy Independence Day!… He put this moratorium in effect despite Tennessee having one of the highest unemployment rates in the country & the highest COVID infection rates. I knew I needed to find a job stat but there didn’t seem to be anything working in my favor. Was I applying for work? Yes, but I didn’t want something soul sucking & I wanted something that would pay me what I know I’m worth, what we’re all worth, which is something you can live off of.

So the weeks passed, every one getting closer & closer to the 4th of July but instead of being stressed about that fact I found myself in a state of unwavering peace. How? Well, I had this belief that something would come along, something that allowed me to set my own schedule, that paid well, that wouldn't leave me a husk of a human, that allowed me to be creative & express myself artistically. The weeks went by, spring turned to summer & summer faded into fall, not really, but still nothing. I still kept faith. I believed in it, I believed that the opportunity I had no idea was coming was actually coming my way.

Enter the week of the 4th. Still nothing. That is until a friend of mine reached out on that Wednesday & asked if I could send a sample of these very blogs that I’d been doing weekly for heaven knows how long now. I did & asked what it was for to which she explained that her boss, to which she works social media for, was looking for someone to convert their podcasts into a blog format. It was entirely freelance, allowed me to be creative, & it paid well. I immediately reached out to the host in question, simply introducing myself. We set a time, had a meeting, I sent over a sample of my work, & I was hired! I never once doubted the job was mine, not once. Never did it cross my mind that it could be given to someone else or that I wasn’t deserving of the position, I knew it was mine because, at the end of the day, it was!

Why can’t all things in life be like that? Why can’t I have that level of belief with everything in my life? Why can’t I believe opportunity will fall into my lap like it did just a few weeks ago, unwavering & confident? It definitely goes against our human conditioning to do so, there’s no doubt in that. Why must we as humans doubt everything we work towards or are worthy of?

A friend of mine, Amanda Francis, a self made millionaire, whom I mention often in this blog wrote a book called “Rich As F$ck” that all of you should read! In RAF she says that she believes money will come to her like she believes the cars on the highway won’t randomly sideswipe her. Laws of attraction & all that. You have to believe it like you believe water will come out the tap when you turn the faucet, that the sun will rise in the east & set in the west, that your plane won’t come randomly crashing to the ground for no reason. That’s not to say, give into delusions though.

You see attracting the things you want requires work. Another friend of mine, Stephen Lovegrove, likes to give his clients that he coaches the analogy of the cheesecake. It is as follows: Say you’re craving cheesecake, have to have it, no if &’s or buts about it. There are several ways you can get the cheesecake. You can go out & buy a slice or a whole cheesecake from the cheesecake factory or another restaurant, you can go to the store & buy a cheesecake, you can get the ingredients at the store & make your own, you can have the ingredients at home & make one that way, &/or you can order UberEats & have a slice of cheesecake delivered. You know what you can’t do? Wish it into existence. You have to put in some for of effort & follow it with the belief that the cheesecake is yours, that one way or another you’re getting that cheesecake come hell or high water.

I think this job opportunity was a test for me, it was affirmation of what faith & belief can achieve, it was proof that we all attract the things we believe to be true, whether that good things or bad things. So why stop here? Why stop at my freelance job?

My advice to you in this practice is to start small, be it monetary, opportunistic, or what have you. As I mentioned several times in my Maui blogs, I have super power that allows me to get a reservation at any restaurant or find a parking spot anywhere. How? Because I believe there’s no alternative option. There is no reality that exists for me in which I have to hunt for parking or miss a restaurant I want to try because they’re booked up or in this case, have the job I want. So give it a shot, start with parking spaces or restaurants & see how it works for you. You have to believe it though which does require a good deal of faith to pull off, but once you tap into that the options are limitless!

So give it a shot!

What’s the worst that could happen?