meditation

What do I mean by “Happy Sexy Millionaire”?

Sounds kind of self-explanatory, but actually, it’s deeper than it sounds.

My words are carefully crafted and packed with all kinds of meaning and associations, designed to help me focus my brain like a laser on manifesting a very specific vision of my future. I’ll explain it all more in upcoming blog posts. (If you didn’t read my previous post, start here at Part 1.)

For now, all you need to know is that, despite living what might seem like a lovely storybook life, I was actually not as happy as you’d think. I mean, I have a healthy, loving family, and we’re traveling the world. A dream come true. Champagne problems, right?

But, you see, deep down, I didn’t always feel like I deserved it.

And if you don’t feel worthy, you’ll never be happy or live your best life… no matter what’s happening around you. Normal concerns that most people have — especially about money and health — I was feeling these a hundred times stronger, and these fears were eating me up. Traveling the world doesn’t give you much relief when you’re living in a cage of fear.

In spite of my seemingly awesome life, I felt an anxiety that often bubbled beneath the surface. And at worst, I had moments of down-right terror. These made it impossible to experience the true joy and bliss I now know we’re all capable of.

This story is about how I came to realize this, and more importantly, how I FIXED. THAT. SHIT.

FOR GOOD.

And then, how I started on a glorious, shining path of bliss. What I’m calling My Legendary Life.

And you can, too! I promise! No matter what you’ve been through, or what you’re going through right now. I’m going to lay it all out for you, because anyone can do what I’ve done.

Back to the Story

We pick up our story from when I landed in Portugal. I had read two of Dr. Joe Dispenza’s books (Your Are The Placebo and Becoming Supernatural), which introduced me to possibilities for a life I didn’t know was possible. Recall (from part 1) that I’d had a breakdown and I was starting my breakthrough.

At this time, I was also gifted with one of Dr. Joe Dispenza’s online workshops. That course took me on a deeper dive into the material and showed me more tools, the formula, to change the way I needed to. This made it easier to understand and take action.

Surviving vs. Thriving

Dr. Joe describes people as either living by survival emotions or by elevated emotions. Wow, this hit home for me. It described me to a T. I quickly recounted my different default behaviors — things like feeling rushed, overly-concerned, controlling of my schedule and processes, drained, impatient, and hyper-analytical.

Heck, back in my interviewing days fresh out of college, when asked what was one of my “weaknesses,” I’d proudly declare that I was incapable of sitting back and kicking up my feet. I was a go-go-go person… but I saw this as a positive trait, because I could be relied on to get the job done.

I had no idea at the time, but too often, I was motivated by the stick versus the carrot. Hardwired in my brain, I had the typical reactions to stress. I had never labeled this as “survival mode,” but that’s exactly what it was. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize the negative consequences of living in that state of heart and mind.

To others, this go-getter (ahem, survival mode) behavior didn’t seem like a bad thing. On the outside, by any measure, I appeared to be successful. But internally, I didn’t feel awesome. I certainly didn’t feel legendary. I just felt tiredly accomplished. I aggressively tackled things instead of relaxing and realizing there was a better way, to both get things done and feel amazing.

A key to my transformation was realizing that I had always been living in survival mode. Like a gazelle being chased by a lion. For over thirty years without a rest.

In Any Given Moment… You Must Choose One or the Other

The emotions driven by the sticks of fear, scarcity, competition, etc., allow no room for those emotions on the opposite end of the spectrum, which I longed for so desperately — awe, bliss, love, forgiveness, happiness, lightness, compassion, gratitude, joy, empowerment, and the general feeling of possessing unlimited possibility.

Sure, I had some elevated emotions in my life (I meditated, practiced gratitude, and thought I had an overall positive outlook), but I wanted them way more often. Like… constantly. Was it too much to ask to have them all the time?

This is how I wanted to live every day…

I finally figured out that I wasn’t living even close to my potential, because I wasn’t regularly experiencing elevated emotions. They weren’t my habit. Although things like Taoist philosophy kept me flexible through some storms, I wasn’t living a life of brilliance and bliss.

The Mask Comes Off

I did a neat little exercise. I looked at my history of actions, big and small, and I identified which emotional label I could apply to each action.

For example — this one might sound a little weird — I had a habit of holding my pee and not going to the bathroom when the need first arose. I would sit at my desk, click click click, working away, needing to pee but putting it off. Toes tapping under the desk to dissipate the energy, driven by what I thought was excitement and pride at busting through my tasks… I would let an hour go by before finally going to the bathroom.

When I think back to those times and put myself in that mental space, I realize that my pee-delaying was caused by my fear of losing time and not cramming in enough work. Ridiculous, right?… causing the discomfort of a bladder about to burst — this is what I’d been calling “an accomplishment.” For fuck’s sake.

Another example… when trying to plan various sources of income, my heart rate would increase and I would snap into a groove where I started to get very organized. I thought it was a skill. But I now realize that my “organization mode” was a mind trap in which there was no room for experimentation, creativity, or flow. I would think in terms of numbers, scarcity, rushing, competition, action plans, and deadlines. In this mode, it was impossible to come up with brilliant new ideas. I operated out of only “what I already know.” I had no patience for open-ended thinking, no room for creative brainstorming. I had zero elevated emotions because, again, I was operating from a place defined by a soul-crushing sense of scarcity. All the while, being deluded, thinking I was in charge of my mind.

But I wasn’t. I was a prisoner.

These two examples — peeing and organizing — might seem minor, but that’s the profound thing: They were everywhere I looked. When you add up the little stuff, the minutes that add up to hours and days, then even “small” moments of scarcity mindset can only manifest as something bad. It’s like dragging a hundred-pound weight by a chain everywhere you go, but not noticing it because it’s been there most of your life.

Cutting that chain would make me feel free and light, like a bird taking flight.

But, first, I had work to do. I would identify ALL of my survival emotions, and replace them with elevated emotions.

I took a microscope to my life and memory surfed. I saw old programs running, big and small. The big ones would take real work to replace. But even the small programs weren’t doing me any favors… they were like sand in the gears in my engine of bliss. I needed to clean out the gunk.

And, as I began the process, another shift started inside me, and I saw everything I did through a new set of eyes. It happened when I considered why I ever started living by these survival emotions.

Houston? We Have a Problem.

Living in Survival mode — you know the feelings — being on edge, anxious, jittery, critical, feeling like there’s not enough time, or you’re running out of time — these emotions have an antithesis: The emotions of Abundance. These are the elevated emotions of creativity, wholeness, worthiness, love, awe, satisfaction, and fulfillment.

“Abundance” — it’s such a good word to hold up and ask yourself, “Do I feel abundance? Abundance with time? Abundance of energy? Wealthy abundance? Love in abundance?”

Or, this… “Do I feel whole? Do I feel worthy?”

Something clicked — my mind opened — when I tasted the words “whole” and “worthy” on my tongue in this new context. I’m sad to say, they were unfamiliar words. I did not feel worthy or whole, and that was a fundamental problem.

But, I was excited, too, as this was an intriguing revelation. I dove in to unpack the issue more.

I realized that my past was an uncultivated garden of weeds. Unworthiness. Under the microscope, I realized I rarely thought of myself as whole. I constantly compared my self and my life to others. I was always looking over my shoulder, and all-too-easily allowed fear in my life. I’d never noticed this before. I’m not even sure I would have realized it was bad, as I so often used these beliefs and emotions to maintain willpower and accomplish goals. I had no idea those weeds were preventing flowers from blooming, keeping me from being completely in love with my life. Or, even when flowers managed to bloom, I didn’t get to experience the entirety of the beauty.

Once I learned this, I imagined what life would be like if I were madly in love with it… where I felt like I was shimmering, whole, worthy, beautiful, and golden all the time. I imagined living with an epic soundtrack constantly playing in the background. You know how some music makes you feel… just fucking unlimited? I wanted that. Non-stop.

I believe we humans are destined for greatness and it’s there for the taking.

I feel there’s a never-ending source of bliss and happiness, and we just aren’t tapping into it. Delusional? No way! I like Anita Moorjani’s take on it: “The last time someone said I was delusional, I almost fell off my unicorn.” ;)

After peering into my past, it became easier to recognize in real-time when I was starting down the same trail. When that happened, I did what Dr. Joe says to do. I exclaimed, “CHANGE!” (literally, out loud), and I’d immediately head in a different direction. A more uplifted one.

That’s the empowering thing: I choose! And, if I choose the elevated option, then the scarcity option doesn’t even exist in that moment. That’s when the magic starts to happen.

Faked It ‘Til I Maked It

Sometimes it was easy to change right then and there. Other times, it required more effort to change my state. At such times, I’d just force it by affirming positively about the change, like a record on repeat. I “faked it ’til I maked” it. It worked, too. My brain listened. It actually doesn’t have a choice. (We’ll dive into that in a future post.)

It wasn’t long before I started behaving differently, consistently. From this, my new personality was being born.

Finding the Time to Put in the Daily Meditation Work

I started with Dr. Joe’s You Are The Placebo meditation, and it was instrumental in helping me rip up the weeds of my subconscious programs.

Soon after, I added his Morning and Evening meditations (a.k.a. “quickies”!).

Doing Dr. Joe’s guided meditations was almost always effortless. Fun, even. But when I was done meditating, it wasn’t as simple to carry the elevated feelings I experienced in meditation throughout the rest of my day. It was like two steps forward and one step back. But with persistence doing the meditations, I experienced more benefits, and as that happened, stronger rewiring began to take place, allowing me to carry the blissy feeling from meditation longer into the day.

The Quickie Gateway

I was drawn to the shorter, “quickie” meditations, because I liked the idea of having designated meditations for morning and evening. And, let me be honest, I was attracted to the length of those meditations. I call them quickies because they’re less than a half hour. This makes them easy to do every day, sometimes even more than once.

But these quickie meditations were baby steps for me. A gateway to the real deal, his longer meditations. I saw them as a small, easy way to jump-start a habit that I had confidence would become longer. As my daily habit of quickies emerged — I’d gone a few weeks without missing a day — I patted myself on the back. I realized it was starting to stick. And I had no problem managing it.

All of Dr. Joe’s other meditations hover around an hour (with some longer). As a newbie, I initially found the longer ones intimidating. Who has an hour every day, right? (A year later, I’d learn how easy it is to find that kind of time.)

I remember loving my meditation time when I started doing them. They were uplifting and I reeaaallllyyy felt peace and warmth inside my body. I would lay in bed, under many blankets pulled up to my neck (it was cold in our Portugal apartment), and I felt so comfy and nourished. I joked with my family that I felt like I was relaxing on a raft in a bowl of chicken noodle soup.

Knowing I’d feel that way while meditating motivated me to do it more. Before long, I was sometimes meditating twice a day. I’d do the quickie morning meditation in the morning and the evening quickie at night.

Personal Responsibility

Meditating for 20-some minutes a day required making a choice about priorities in my life. Do I watch Netflix or meditate. Do I read or meditate? Do I keep reading and learning more about this awesome stuff… or do I stop and meditate? Do I work an extra 20 minutes or do I meditate?

Do I live life as it is status-quo, or do I design the destiny I’ve always dreamed of?

I chose to design and live the dream life. So, what would that mean I’d have to do?

Motivated for Change: To Shit or Get Off the Pot

Either I wanted a different life or I didn’t. I really did! So, that meant doing the work. Making choices and staying the course. Being intentional with my day and planning it. Opting not to watch Netflix and instead doing the meditations.

I looked at my schedule and worked backwards. I decided, at that time, that my most reliable window to meditate was in the evening. I liked doing it lying down in bed. I know Dr. Joe Dispenza wouldn’t love this since he’d want me sitting up, but I found my deepest relaxation lying down. I only occasionally fell asleep, so most of the time I stayed awake. Good.

I preferred to be asleep by 10pm, which meant starting my meditation by 9:00 or 9:30pm at the latest (if I was doing a quickie). That meant getting ready for bed before that, since I like to go straight from meditating to sleeping (for the best sleep ever!). That meant finishing dinner by a certain time, and so on.

So I backed out my schedule like this. I wrote it and rewrote it until it was something I was confident made sense for me.

Then, I transferred it to my iPhone. I set alarms and I was off to the races. As a result, I got really good about meditating almost every day, and sometimes 2 to 3 times. I realized the benefit of meditating in the morning, too. It set my day up for success. If I wanted more glitter in my day, morning meditation was a key.

So I rewrote my schedule to include morning meditations, and backed it out to see what time I had to wake up, use the bathroom, make coffee, and then meditate. I got it down to the minute. Into the iPhone it went on my calendar. Bam!

I settled into a great morning (and bedtime) routine, and things were getting better all the time.

A couple of weeks went by. Then, we moved along in our travels (we were living a digital nomad life, moving to a new country every month or two). We left Portugal for Denmark, and my routine wasn’t quite established long enough to maintain it right from the get-go of landing in Denmark. But, I figured I had enough meditation mojo to keep me afloat for a few days.

However, that few days turned into a week. Ugh.

I eventually got back to it fairly regularly after a couple of weeks, but not every single day. At that, I often opted for the “quickie” meditation of the morning or evening. Better than nothing though.

Over the following 9 months, I continued meditating a lot and following the formula Dr. Joe teaches. As a result, I was living the life of a novice manifester and enjoying plenty of happiness. I downloaded more Dr. Joe meditations — they’re all a bit different — and I’d change them up occasionally. I’d do quickies 3 to 5 days a week, occasionally twice a day when I was an extra good girl. I did his longer meditations once or twice a week.

My inner dialog was changing. And my behaviors, too. I felt the pages turning as I continued to evolve.

However. My big manifestations and dreams still seemed farther from me than I wanted. I knew better than to try and analyze them with a calendar in mind, but I couldn’t help letting myself wonder at times.

I did a self-check and wondered if I was doing everything right. I knew the things I wanted were there and available, but I didn’t feel like I was constantly drawing them to me. During an actual meditation, totally all good, and they were coming. My millionaire life was manifesting. But, when I wasn’t meditating, my manifestations seemed to move in a slower motion, like they were being pulled through quicksand.

Hmmm.

I was happy, but I wasn’t living the legendary life I intuited was just sitting there for the taking.

I knew I could continue making tweaks and improvements but, well, life happens. We traveled to a fairly isolated area of Ireland, and I let my cold, moldy, rainy surroundings get the best of me (in spite of fairly regular meditating). Then, we went to Bulgaria. It was sunny and cheerful, but I found little things regularly annoying, and so the same — during my meditations I was great, but off the couch, I wasn’t living up to the vision of myself I’d started to experience a few months earlier, when things were humming more smoothly.

Then, we came back “home” to Italy, where I hunkered down and formed a rock-solid routine. I became diligent about meditating daily. I also started doing more of the longer ones. Things were starting to click again.

And then…

My Cordoba Crash

I confess. I got a bit cocky. With the new me I was becoming, I decided I could handle something a little risky.

But first, let me back up.

A year or so before, I had recognized that concerns about health and longevity were one of my past “issues,” — probably the single biggest fear which kept me in a constant survival mindset. I had an unhealthy relationship with these topics and, at times, a crippling fear of disease, to the point where I could feel it doing damage, physically and emotionally. Learning about health strategies and implementing them actually created so much toxic stress, that it would probably have been healthier to forget about health altogether and sit around eating donuts all day.

When I recognized my major fear-related issues around health and nutrition, I made some changes. Drastic steps, really — I started “yanking those weeds,” as it were. I stopped stressing about food so much. I also stopped consuming an “information diet” that fed my stress: I cut health gurus out of my life. I deleted them on Twitter. I unsubscribed from their newsletters. Books on health went unread. I deleted similar podcasts from my feed.

That was about the time I started doing work internally with meditating. After a year away from these sources of stress, and a newfound sense of non-fear-based self, I thought I was ready to stick one toe back into the nutrition sphere. I was confident I could handle it.

An announcement about a new book came across my feed. It looked very interesting. (I still possessed a huge intrinsic interest in these topics, even without all the fear.) I thought, for sure, I was capable of reading it without freaking out. I was all good, right? Fixed? Surely, I can let a little of that back in, just to see the status of things a year later on diets, supplements, etc. Stay on top of things … just in case. No harm in that. Right?

Wrong.

Greg looked at me with a question in his eyes a couple of times during that week, “Are you sure you want to be reading that book?” He knows me.

As I was reading it, I started to feel that old friend-not-friend, anxiety… sneakily disguised as excitement. Old fears cloaked as passions began resurfacing. I felt like an addict with parts of my brain lighting up – crap, it was feeling familiar, and not in a good way… I NOW REALIZED… but a little too late.

We were in Cordoba, Spain, and I was part-way through the book, imagining ways to start using all of the tips I was learning. One morning I woke up feeling very much out of sorts, dizzy, and unwell. It was reminiscent of my former breakdown a year ago. Fuuuuuuck. Immediately, I knew I had a problem. It was my canary in my coal mine.

I implemented a code red! I abandoned my fixation, knowing full well it was indeed not OK for me to be entertaining that old part of my life. It would not end well. I was not ready.

Go Big or Go Home!

I knew what I had to do. I doubled down on Dr. Joe Dispenza’s work, and that’s when things went next level for my whole life with yet another shift.

I was desperate not to go back to that shitty river of change. I knew the best thing for me was to get back to meditating and manifesting, but this time I’d go big or go home. And when I say big, I mean BIG.

Enter: Dr. Joe Dispenza Immersion

I immediately started re-reading books by Dr. Joe (all of them!). I watched his online course again(!). I watched tons of testimonials from his workshops with heart-bursting inspirational stories. I listened to Dr. Joe on podcast interviews. I started meditating diligently every day, and I didn’t even consider the quickie meditations unless they were in addition to another long meditation I’d done that day.

Immersion. Immersion. Immersion.

I spent all day doing these things for days. I was in Dr. Joe Dispenza School!

Guess what? OMG. It worked!

Pheeeeeeewwwwwwww!

I accepted that I’d triggered an addiction that I had let torture me for so many years. I felt like Luke when he went to confront Vader without completing his Jedi training. I wasn’t ready for the burden.

(With 20/20 hindsight, I realize so much more now about why I wasn’t ready. Read on.)

Within a week, I snapped out of that spiral of despair. I was not only back to my new self that I started creating last year, but I was coming out as something… someone… even more new!

Brighter. Shinier. Finally!

I was beginning to understand how I could live that legendary life.

What I realized from spending all that time in what I call “Dr. Joe Dispenza School” was that the longer meditations are crucial! Crucial crucial crucial!

So I made them a priority. No exceptions. Like breathing.

You see, my reprogramming had been going well, for the most part. The neurons had fired, but they weren’t all wired yet. I had made new connections in my brain, but they were still squishy. It was the longer meditations, practiced day after day, that finally made them start to cement.

This, in turn, led to a change in how I handled the rest of my day, when I wasn’t meditating. And that is where the magic happened, where the secrets were unlocked, leading to the amazing life I’m living right now.

I was finally tapping into an existence I believed was possible. The feeling was… I can only describe it as “soaring.” I was in awe of what I was capable of feeling in spite of the conditions in my life.

I find the whole process to be magical. The fact that I’m manifesting a future and it’s not even here… yet, I feel like it is here! I feel it in my core. And that is what the brain needs to make it happen. It transcends thought and ideas and plans — it becomes a deeply internalized belief that saturates your entire being and extends beyond.

Does this sound weird? It’s not. When we generate these elevated emotions repeatedly, they become traits of ours. You go from temporarily feeling them, to regularly experiencing them, to constantly experiencing them. And that is when you easily bounce back from situations and conditions that would normally drag you down.

Simple as 1, 2, 3

I laughed out loud when I realized how clear and simple this is. It takes diligence, but the actual work is fun. I just follow these steps:

1. Meditate properly — With open focus, letting go, setting intentions, and getting into a state designed to support those. Don’t know how? No problem, all of Dr. Joe’s meditations provide guidance for this, and I’ll write more in the future about my experiences and how I use them.
2. Maintain elevated emotional states during and after meditation. I’ve created a toolbox of techniques I use daily to ensure this, which I’ll be covering in depth in the future as well.
3. Rinse and repeat.

The Bliss Drip

And that’s why I’m so happy today.

So much of my daily existence is flourishing in elevated emotions, expecting the best and welcoming it at every turn. It feels magical, and I understand what it takes to manifest big. It’s an indescribable knowing… an intuition… a secret code that plays in my eyes at all times, especially whenever something comes up that might have triggered doubt before. It’s a feeling of being Totally Limitless.

Next up:
Post 3: Why Write About Becoming a Happy Sexy Millionaire?

The Happy Sexy Millionaire Series

Post 1: I’ve Decided to Become a Millionaire

Post 2: How I Started My Life Change to Become a Happy Sexy Millionaire (you are here now)

Post 3: Why Write About Becoming a Happy Sexy Millionaire?

Post 4: Science Behind the Magic of Becoming a Happy Sexy Millionaire

Post 5: Becoming a Happy Sexy Millionaire – Step 1: Loving Yourself

Post 6: Becoming a Happy Sexy Millionaire – Step 2: Law of Attraction Meditations

Post 7: Becoming a Happy Sexy Millionaire – Step 3: Off-the-Couch Daily Living Immersion

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