This morning, I saw a post on Facebook for an Administrative Assistant. Curious, in case it was something interesting or there might be a fit for someone I know, I clicked on the link.

The job description asked for nothing out of the ordinary, really, for a job like this. People skills. Office skills. Knowledge of WordPress, Constant Contact, and Social Media, as well as all the usual computer programs you’d expect for an AA. The job is part time, which I personally find preferable to full time, and even includes vacation and sick pay after 6 months.  Sounds like a great job.

Except for the pay.  $9.75-$10.50 an hour. Really? You would like a person who has all those skills to work for you, who is personable, smart, self-motivated… Who will be the voice and face of your organization, for ten dollars an hour?  At 32 hours a week, calculated for an average month, that comes to $1,444.  Deduct for taxes, and your new employee takes home just over $1,000 a month. There are many jobs that require less ‘brains’ that pay better. Nearly double, in fact.

2 years ago when I was looking, I found the same thing. They want someone with a degree beyond high school, with years of computer experience, to be the first-line greeting face of their organization, for next to nothing. If you hire someone with a young family who has to pay for childcare, you’re basically getting someone working for free.  It doesn’t seem right to me.

What is going on here? Are we as a community actually punishing the intelligent and educated? What’s the incentive to go to school, to go to college, to gain computer literacy, when the slightly above average teen can earn more cash working retail than working in an office?

What would it take for skilled jobs to list for fair compensation around here?

 

“Real love is about a life-time of compromise, commitment and trust”

I have seen this quote so many times.  Every time I read it, my internal “LIE” detectors go off great guns. This time, I decided to do research.

Dictionary.reference.com shares these definitions:

1. a settlement of differences by mutual concessions; an agreement reached by adjustment of conflicting or opposing claims, principles, etc., by reciprocal modification of demands.
2. the result of such a settlement.
3. something intermediate between different things: The split-level is a compromise between a ranch house and a multistoried house.
4. an endangering, especially of reputation; exposure to danger, suspicion, etc.: a compromise of one’s integrity.verb (used with object)
5. to settle by a compromise.
6. to expose or make vulnerable to danger, suspicion, scandal, etc.; jeopardize: a military oversight that compromised the nation’s defenses.
7. Obsolete: a. to bind by bargain or agreement. b.to bring to terms.

Reading all of these definitions, I find that I am not inclined to compromise very much.  I have spent much of my life compromising; okay, we’ll eat here. Okay, I will go do that. My body rebels against it, and later I am angry. Why? Because I did exactly number 1.

What’s wrong with that, you say?  “reciprocal modifications of demands.”

A demand is a violent way to make a request. Do you want your husband to issue commands? Do you want your wife to tell you what to do? No. I am concerned that the primary idea of relationship that is being perpetrated in our society is that “compromise” is necessary.

What about a totally different option? What about being able to make requests, and if the other party says, “I’ve considered your request, and my response is no,” the requester says, “Thank you.”  No is no. Unfortunately, many people can not receive “no” with grace.

What if we approached a major shift with a different attitude?  What if instead of saying, “Honey, I got a big job opportunity in Mexico and we are going to move there.” (a demand statement) we ask questions instead?  What would it take for my job in Mexico to work for me and my partner and family?

Wow, that opens up a whole new door, doesn’t it?

I’ll give you an example, now that I’ve had time to think of one. My partner and I enjoy social dancing together.  My favorite styles are Contra, Swing, and Country Swing. He enjoys going to a Cajun/Zydeco dance that is held monthly, and he often runs the sound for it.  I went with him a few times to try it out. I found that I didn’t enjoy it for a number of reasons. The music was too loud, usually because the band asked for it to be turned up – most of the dancers were wearing ear plugs! If anyone in the band sang, they were phenomenally mediocre, which I understand can be a trait of that type of music, but it really grates on my nerves as a professional singer.  We did go hear Rosie at the Upstage once; SHE was amazing, I had Ken all to myself, and we had a blast.  Back to the local dance, if my partner had to tweak the sound or wanted to dance with another lady, I was sitting out. I tried dancing with some of the other men, but they were generally too tall, too sweaty, or not fun to dance with. I found that some of them would not actually dance with me, but would do their own thing while holding on to me. My shoulder was sore from my arm being pushed back too far. I tried to push back, to get my arm in a more comfortable position, but the guy wasn’t paying attention. No fun for me, thanks.

Anyway, I compromised, and went a couple of times after the first dance. More of the same experience. I asked myself, “What would it take for the Zydeco dance to work for me?”  And the immediate answer jumped to my head. “Not to go.”

The beautiful thing is that in my relationship, I am free to say that. Does Ken enjoy dancing with me, yes. I’m his favorite partner and he mine. He also enjoys dancing around, providing the opportunity to other women at the dance to smile, feel special, twirl and dip.  I love watching him. It’s beautiful. It’s one of his gifts.  Is that a compromise for me? No. Not in the least. Is not having me to dance with a compromise for him? Does it make him vulnerable? No, not in the least.

So I say, “Have fun!” and he goes off to the dance without me. He has a great time. He gets to be himself, dance all night, and twirl the pretty ladies. I have a great time at home, working on music, watching a movie, going to the theatre, whatever.  We accept each other’s truth.

When I hear about couples that do things because the other wanted them to, or because the other one enjoys it, I chafe. I’ve heard too many times, “I only did it because you wanted to.” How many people have compromised themselves away in order to be in relationship, and wake up some time later wondering where they have been?  What would it take for us to allow truth to be paramount in our relationships from the beginning?

That’s what I created. A couple of years ago, I sent a lot of energy to creating an authentic, equal partnership. What’s interesting is that most of the energy that I raised to create that came from time I spent with someone who did not ultimately become my partner.  Had I clung to that other man, trying to manufacture our friendship into that partnership, I would have driven myself crazy. It would have taken compromise myself into fitting into his world, or asking him to compromise more of himself to be in mine.  We both would be miserable now, and seeking a way out.  He agreed verbally with my direction of energy, but his worldview and mine didn’t match. We stopped seeing each other.

Is it reasonable to think, then, that compromise might be something that sends up a red flag?  A warning that someone is being asked to go out of integrity?

The definition that struck me as most interesting is the last, which is curiously labeled, “Obsolete.”  I don’t find it obsolete at all. “To bind by bargain or agreement.”  I’m not sure about you, but I’ve left the phase of my life where I enjoy bondage.  I’m really much more in to being free. Free to choose, free to engage in my life’s priorities, free to express my truth.

I would like to invite you to watch for compromise in your life. And say no. Stay in alignment with yourself and watch what happens.

Blessings,
Jaie Arianna

Last May, I wrote a blog sharing a system of money management that worked for me when I had very little money.  It prevented me from zeroing out my balance, and made me more aware of how much I was spending.  You can read about it here:  http://wp.me/p1V35X-3G

Since then, I had the incredible blessing of hosting Debra Littrell of Transformative Spirit for her “What if you could change your reality about Money” class, and have done a number of remarkable things to shift my reality around money.

One of them is that I began saving 10% of everything.  Every check I receive, every cash gift or payment, 10% goes into a gold box and I keep it.  No spending.  I now carry a $100 bill in my wallet.  So that I have money. Everywhere I go, I have money. You have heard the old adage, “You have to have money to make money.”  Well, now I have money.

This doesn’t really have anything to do with my original plan, which was to only ever spend no more than 1/2 of my balance on any transaction.  So if I had $50 left, I could only buy $25 worth of groceries.

I admit that I had let this idea go for quite a while.  It was no longer in my consciousness.  I received a credit card.  I made two very specific purchases on that card – tickets for a special show with my son and his grandma, and shoes for him.  The total was $183.  I knew that I would have more than enough to pay the bill when it came in, even though I could not pay cash for the purchases at the time.

I noticed the other day that this “1/2 of what I have” rule was still in play.  When I checked my balance the day that the bill was paid, I still had a balance in my account of $186.  How does it get even better?  I then remembered that I made that “only spend 1/2” target.

Everywhere I decided that that was good and right, I destroy and de-story.   Why? Because I rarely spend $200 in a shot.   I would like ten-times more than $200 in my bank account!  I knew I was limiting my income somehow, but I didn’t know where!

It’s important, when you make a target, to use maximizers.  I will have AT LEAST twice the amount I am spending.  How many of you say, “there is always enough?”  What benefit do you get from running yourself at the razor’s edge?  How about “There is always more than twice what I need?”  “There is always MORE than enough.”  Or even better, using Dr. Dain Heer’s money questions – even the simple, “How does it get even better? What will it take to receive ten-fold more?” Every time you pay for something, receive money, or pay a bill.  I even say it when I look at my investment gain or loss… and in the 3 weeks or so I’ve been doing that, my investments have gained 10%!

For those of you who say, “It’s greedy,” I ask you to look around.  Are the plants greedy for air? For water? No, it’s all around them. They tap into it, use what they need without any human affects of shame, greed, unworthiness.  Greed is a distraction program.  There’s always abundance, everywhere, all around us.  The trick is that you have to tap in to it, you have to be willing to receive it, to be in the flow of it.  There’s always more than enough, and I’m willing to receive it.

Thanks for reading.

“Sing”-cerely,

Monday I awoke fuzzy, with mucus building and that feeling that says, “no, I just want to stay in bed.”  I got up anyway, drank my honey-lemon-ginger tea, and did yoga with my partner.  We walked to his office, and I said

“I’m feeling heavy about going to the Assisted Living facility tomorrow to sing.”

After a brief exchange, in which he expressed his interesting point of view that one should keep ones commitments (should=judgment) I dropped the subject. I know that my body, if I’m not listening to it, will actualize illness if I’m going to force it to do something it doesn’t want to do. Convenient? No. Not unless I listen to that first sign…

I got home and called to cancel.  I felt better within a few hours.

Tuesday came and I called again to be sure they got the message, which they hadn’t.  Karen assured me that they would miss me, but understood. They always have an activity ready, it seems.  I breathed a sign of relief and closed up shop after my last client.

I got home around the time I would have gone to sing, and called a long-acquainted singer & bass player about the show I’m musical directing. We had a lot of laughs and he mentioned that the church he plays for is looking for a choir director. This is the second time I’ve heard about this gig. It’s a paying gig, mind you, which is important to note around here.  He told me more about the building and the people, and said, “Rehearsal is at 4:00 Tuesdays. You should come.”  I said, “I have a client at 4, but if I didn’t I might just drop by.”

Thirty minutes later, I get a text from my client that she had to cancel. I’m feeling droopy, so I go lay down, but I can’t sleep because the energy is racing. I said I’d go to the choir practice if I didn’t have a client. Crap! I’m up like a shot and calling the church to see if it’s okay.

The receptionist sounded doubtful, but went to check with the Music Director.  “She says it would be fine.”

I arrive, I’m introduced innocuously as “a visitor” and sing with the sopranos. They read really well!  As we open the hymnal to the last song for the day, the melody rings in my ears from childhood. “Here I am, Lord”.  The significance is not lost on me. I’m sitting here, in the choir rehearsal, considering the calling to serve this church congregation as choir director. And we’re singing, “Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord? I have heard you calling in the night. I will go, Lord, if you lead me. I will hold your people in my heart.”

Rehearsal folds and everyone wants me to join and come sing Sunday, and I smile and say, “Thank you, no…”  What do you do, they want to know.  “I’m a voice teacher.”  Oh! It was kind of fun!

The Music Director and I talk a little bit and I learn more about the job. I tell her I need to consider things; the biggest concerns I have are if my connection to the divine conflicts with their message, and if I am aligning with an organization that stands on ancient biblical views about sexuality.  They are an “open hearts, open minds, open doors” congregation…  She says, “We’ve been waiting for a choir director to fall out of the sky…”

As I’m walking out, I get a text. I stop and respond to it. I walk on, then turn back to look at the building, the physical representation of the energy of this congregation, and breathe in the autumn air.

“Okay, church, if I serve as your choir director, will you expand my life, living, and prosperity?”

The energy around me lifts in a big yes.

I turn to go to my car again, and I ask, “Am I the contribution you would like?”

As I feel the energy lift again, my phone vibrates and chimes as another text arrives.

I cry-laugh with the seagulls and I practically stumble to my car. That was a pretty big confirmation. How does it get any better than that?

I check the internet to see about this congregation’s stance on sexuality. It aligns with who I be.  I sleep on it, barely, and talk to my partner in the morning.  We’d have to move our regular Sunday activity to Saturday. He grins at me. It’s a go.

So off I go to drop off my resume’ and cover letter.

Wish me ease, joy and glory!

“Sing”-cerely

I Could look at this photo all day. It used to be that I hated being photographed, and then it was misery to choose one that was any good. Well, as I’ve matured, I’ve learned to love that reflection. I really, truly Love myself, my image. I’m not hiding behind a mask anymore, and so it’s really easy to look at.
I’m not being an egotistical freak here. I’m really, sincerely, very happy to see what I see. It’s a nice change from a few decades ago.
Sing-cerely,
Jaie Arianna

I just had a big ‘aha’ moment.  As I sit here knowing I ‘should’ be rehearsing, I am attending to my email communications when it hit me.

I give my power away when I don’t really want to do something.

Maybe singing, “I’m just a girl who can’t say no” in Broadway and Bordeaux this summer will allow me to process this pattern.

Why does this behavior work for me? It allows me to blame the other person, instead of owning my choices. It allows me to continue to play the victim role, instead of speaking my truth and owning my choices.

The particular thing that brought this up and showed me this behavior was my parents’ desire to know when I’m bringing my son to visit them this summer.  It’s not so bad, really. I have grown a lot. My parents have grown a lot, and my childhood wasn’t that horrible in the grand scheme of things.  But I don’t want to do it. Not yet, anyway.  It feels heavy in my heart, and my throat is tight. I don’t want to go.

I’m learning that I need to feel everything fully, including my resistance, before I can make an aligned choice.  If I rush in, or do what they want because they want me to, I end up punishing myself for it. I’ll sabotage the trip.  I’ll make things difficult, injure myself, or get sick. I know that much about myself.

I keep asking them when they want me to come. I was about to ask my son’s dad when he thinks we should go. I keep asking other people to make the choices for me, instead of choosing for myself. If I had the choice to make, if I truly took power over it, I would not go. I keep saying that the trip has to work for me, which is true. What is more true is that I have some things to feel fully and embrace before I can be okay with committing to the trip.

This is a huge revelation for me. I can shift this “reality” now that I’m aware of it.

When would I go, if I allow myself the absolute choice?

I don’t know.

I’ll let you know when I decide for me.

Sing-cerely,

I’ve instituted a new way of managing my money. I read about a bunch of different ways to manage your money, including T. Harv Ecker’s Six Jars, and the Save, Spend, and Give.  I found the first too divisive for my tastes, and the second just didn’t work either.

I think that Suze and Harv would agree that whatever you are doing that works is the right way to manage your money.  When I was trying to do the 6 jars, my money felt disjointed and scattered. When I attempted to follow his plan, I was earning a weekly paycheck, so I had money to spread around. But I found it stressful to have to run over here and then run over there and transfer this here…Too much effort! I was constantly in stress and trying to figure out which jar I was drawing from. I ended up spending my savings anyway, and had to start from scratch.

I created a new system, which for me felt right. Those of you who have read my blog know that I’m all about finding what is right for me; that other people’s ideas definitely have merit, and I might borrow them from time to time, but I need to follow my own heart, my own still small voice. So I came up with something of my own.

Based on my research into the various Money Gurus, they all pretty much agree that it is ideal if you can live on only one half of what you earn.  Ideally, this means that you’re saving the other half, and that is my goal. I’m doing what I can at this point. As an Entrepreneur, I began splitting my money in half when I get it. I deposit my client’s checks into my business account, and then transfer one half to my personal account.  The business account still is drawn on for business expenses, but it is my stealthy way of building a reserve; my business spending is much smaller than my personal outflow.

I made another decision, which was to spend no more than half of what was in my bank account at any time.  This idea came to fruition because I would often see something I needed, or have a bill to pay, and I would spend myself down to near zero. This creates an obvious stress reaction.  So if I have $100, and I need to pay my $40 gas card bill, I can do that. I have $60 left over. If I then need to pay my $50 insurance bill, I have to wait until I have $100 in my account again.  It was originally on a per-transaction basis, although last weekend, I upped the bar, and decided to hold my total spending to 1/2 of my balance as of Thursday.  I succeeded.

So the guidelines that I am working with are:

1. Deposit only 1/2 of my income into my spending account.
2. Deposit the other 1/2 into savings or in my case, my business account.
3. Spend no more than 1/2 my balance in any one transaction.

My spending account balance still fluctuates wildly. But I always have something in it. Unless I nickel and dime myself to death, I can’t bounce a check, so to speak. It also provides a concrete reason to be aware of my balance.

Thanks to my little experiment, my Business account is currently amassing a balance. I just don’t have as much business spending to do at this point.  What is interesting is that today, when I saw my growing balance, I had a stress reaction to it. “Oh, God, I have to get rid of that money.” What an interesting subconscious thought. I’ve been tracking these, writing them down, and then using Tapping or Access Consciousness to dismantle the program in my energy field.

So what is ‘wrong’ with amassing wealth? Nothing, on the conscious level. But I’m sure that as I walk through my day and pay attention, those subconscious thoughts will bring me to the truth of the programming behind my fears and challenges. And as they come up, I will tap them away or destroy and uncreate them.  Poof.

I have to get to revenue-generating activities now… so I will post more later.

I am truly grateful for the providers in my life who are allowing me to do my work without fear for my actual safety and health.

Love, Blessings, and Gratitude,

This morning, as I walked our usual route to my Beloved’s office and back, I was beset with the runny nose and sneezing that might say, “Allergy!”  I noticed that the trees were blooming across the street, and so I picked up one of the blossoms that had blown onto my path, and sniffed it.

I could feel the immediate response – the itchiness and the desire to sneeze. I thought, hmm, How could my body come into harmony with this plant?  And I felt things shift slightly.

And then I remembered the Access Consciousness question.  “What else is possible?” Or, more specifically in this case:  What other response could my body have to this flower?  Within a few minutes, the runny nose stopped. The itching subsided. I still carried the blossom; I took a big sniff.  “Ah, what a beautiful perfume,” was my body’s only response.

What an immense shift in only a short period of time!  I’m not suggesting that people ditch their allergy medications and epi-pens. I’m offering this as a possibility… try it with things that are only mild irritants first.  You’re in charge of your body… or have you forgotten?

My sinus is clear, my day looks bright, and I have a beautiful white cherry bloom gracing my table.  Ah, what a beautiful spring day!

Love, Blessings, and Gratitude,

 

 

I’m Not Mad. I’m Potent.

I was on a fantastic teleseminar on Monday that bent my reality just another little bit… And you know that if you change the course of your boat by 1%, you will end up in a different location?

I learned that we think kids are ‘mad’, but what they really are is potent. They are building energy to make some kind of a change. When we were growing up, we didn’t know that, our parents didn’t know that, and so this building up of energy got labeled as ‘mad’ or ‘angry’ and we were told NOT to do it. Ok, I don’t know about you, but at least I was. I was told I had no right to do it – to be angry, that is. And when we’ve built up our energy, or seen our kids build up their energy to transform something, and we label it as ‘anger’, they learn that this is how to make change, so they put the angry face on.

This really clicked for me this week, and I realized all the times I would try ‘mirroring’ with my son, only to have him actually get mad and say, “NO, I’m NOT Angry.”  Huh. I thought his face showed anger, but it was really the potency of change that he is creating.

Our family has been in the throes of creating change through intense potency. I am guilty of it as well as being a victim of it. And I’m setting out to change it. At least to reframe my idea of what is going on with me and my son when we are charged up. It is exactly that – we’re charged up because something is not working for us, and we’re seeking to make change.  This intensity is simply our pattern of how we have gone about it in the past.

I’m looking forward to this weekend and seeing what is different.

Love, Blessings, and Gratitude,

 

Today is our seventh ‘luniversary‘.  If you recall, in The Honeymoon Begins, it was September 11 of 2011 that we made an impromptu trip to the Labyrinth and declared ourselves to be Love. Time seems to be moving so quickly these days that it feels as if each of these months has been a year. We have so much to celebrate!

Today, he said to me, “It just keeps getting better.”

I responded by saying that everything in the universe is either growing or dying. Our relationship is growing steadily, as it has since the first time we danced.

Some might wonder if the depth and closeness of a friendship might somehow limit the chances of a ‘relationship’ forming. Ironically, being that I did not want to repeat my history of quickly met and quickly enmeshed, it was that deep friendship that allowed us to create the partnership and bond that we share.

American culture’s norm is to get to know someone at the same time that you are feeling out physical intimacy with them. By the time you’ve gotten close enough to know that you don’t want to go any farther, sometimes you’re too far in. It’s a mess to untangle. Oh, that more people could make friends first! Oh, that people understood why the old ‘taboos’ existed! Why did this knowledge fade into the dust? Why?

This is the first relationship (meaning something beyond friendship) in which I’ve truly been able to say anything. Yes, sometimes it has been challenging to overcome my programming and the societal pressure to keep silent about certain topics, but even then, he patiently sends me love as I clear those old ‘mental viruses’ off my biological desktop so that I can express myself. It’s magical.

The other day he said something that, well, I honestly can’t remember. But it was the kind of thing that you usually catch with your filters and label ‘inappropriate to share’. I laughed and laughed. This is the man for me. When you can share those things and know your partner will appreciate it… oh, that’s bliss!

I wish the same for all of you. And if you’d like some free advice, here it is.

Make friends first.

If you’re attracted to someone, meditate on your past lives together, and heal anything that needs healing. First!

Set strong, healthy boundaries.

Allow yourself to fall in love with someone with whom you are deep, close friends, first.

And if you’re not his ‘type,’ don’t bother falling in love.

Do your own inner spiritual work.

Passionately tell the Universe (yes, that’s right, TELL) what you desire in your partnership.

Say YES only to what feels right.

And Love, Love, LOVE!