AMA with AMA: Answering YOUR questions!

Beethoven... Popcorn... and the Self-Development Escalator.

Dear Kula Diaries,

Welcome to another episode of, ‘Ask Anastasia a simple question and see how quickly she can relate it to the meaning of life, the universe and everything that has ever existed — including the nothingness that is at the center of it all.’

Ok, but seriously, I’m really glad you’re here — and I love writing these columns each week, and I hope you enjoy reading them. For those of you who are new, ‘AMA’ stands for ‘Ask me Anything’ … and AMA also happens to be my initials. If you have a burning question for me — and it doesn’t have to be pee cloth related — you can drop it in to the Kula Diaries Vault, and I will consider it for a future AMA.

Without further adieu, lest I get wildly out of control and start writing poetry… let’s dive into the questions!

Dear AMA,

What day in the past would you like to go back to? (could be from your own life or historical)

So, I’ve actually (oddly) thought a lot about this question… and I have a very specific answer. But first (and you probably knew this was coming….), a story.

When I started college, I was not very cool (by other college students’ standards). I was studious, I didn’t drink, and I spent most of my time at orchestra rehearsals. I’ve already shared that I attended my first fraternity party (ever) with a BYOBDP+KKB… Bring Your Own Dr. Pepper and Kit Kat Bar. I remember standing against the wall in the basement of the Delta fraternity house while sipping my self-procured can of Dr. Pepper… nibbling on my King Sized Kit Kat Bar… and watching everybody else play beer pong. I was, in a word, slightly awkward.

Ultimately, I ended up deciding to ‘try partying’ — which consisted of me going to a frat party entitled, ‘Gin & Juice’ when I was 18 years old. I am ashamed to admit that, yes, Gin & Juice was the very first mixed alcoholic beverage that I ever consumed. It was not good. I went to a few more parties during my freshman year, and had a tiny taste of what I can only assume is ‘popularity’ — people recognized me on campus and started to wave at me and act like I was their best friend. Unbeknownst to me, a few sororities sent some girls to ‘vet’ my personality for recruitment into their organization. I had no desire to join a sorority, but I felt flattered that anybody even considered me. That was, until, I learned about the notebook. And no, I’m not talking about the early 2000’s film… keep in mind, this was 1999, and this was a decidedly different type of notebook. This was the notebook where the sorority folks wrote down their observations about the new class of freshmen girls. Somehow, my roommate (who was actively pursuing enrollment in a sorority), saw this notebook… and saw what had been written about me. “Don’t take it personally,” she said, as she told me what she had seen. Written in the notebook below my name had been:

FYI … Stacy was my nickname growing up… and ‘Ruland’ is my maiden name.

The very next weekend, I decided that I wanted to stop partying. I knew that I needed to be honest with myself that it wasn’t really who I was. I had always embraced my overall-wearing, unicycle-riding, short-hair-cutting self… even amidst even the worst bullying, and I wasn’t about to give up on that in college. Within a week of deciding to stop going to parties, all of the people who had previously erupted in giggles and excitement when they saw me on campus… barely seemed to notice me. I realized that the friendly moments we had shared were based primarily on getting drunk and dancing to Jamiroquai. As much as I love dancing to Jamiroquai’s music now, 'Canned Heat’ was not my idea of an unshakeable foundation for a strong friendship.

I started playing violin when I was four years old, and music is something that has always been with me. My musical friends were also a constant — and we shared something very special when we created music together. As I retreated from my short stint in the ‘party scene’ at college, I threw myself entirely into the one place where I had always felt like I belonged: my music. I started eating meals alone in the dining hall — this was long before the smartphone had arrived in the world, and so I’d bring a book with me to sit in the corner while I ate my meal. I later learned that I had been nicknamed, ‘weird girl’, by a significant portion of the seating cliques in the dining hall. But, I didn’t really care. In my Junior year of college, I had another brief stint of partying, and again, made the decision that it wasn’t right for me. In the midst of all of this — something exciting was happening in the music department at my school: thanks to a huge alumni donation, the college was building a brand new concert hall. To celebrate the new building, my orchestra conductor, Brian Norcross, decided that we were going to do something unprecedented: in two years, we were going to perform all nine Beethoven symphonies.

Most people are lucky if they ever get to perform one Beethoven symphony in their life — and it’s usually the 5th symphony (that’s the +DUH DUH DUH DUMMMM…. DUH-DUH-DUH-DUHHHHHHHHHHHHMMMMMMM one). In my Junior and Senior year of college, I was going to get to perform all nine of them. In my Junior year, I was the 3rd chair, first violinist… and in my senior year of college, I was selected to be the concertmaster of the orchestra — that’s the violinist who sits in the first chair, and walks out at the start of the concert to signify that it is time for the orchestra to tune before the conductor takes their place on the podium. During the final two years of college… I struggled. I did not know what I wanted to do with my life — I had decided to be pre-med in college, but I felt lost. I flunked my MCATs the first time that I took them, and according to my guidance counselor, the B- that I had received in Physics wasn’t going to help me get into medical school. My partying friends had stopped speaking to me once I retreated from the party scene… and I was living with roommates that spent most evenings playing beer pong in our living room. I showed up at class every single day, and I got good grades, but I fantasized about being finished with college. The only thing that kept me going on most days was the joy that I felt during my orchestra practices. In those four hours per week, I was swept away into a symphony of music that allowed me to forget, at least temporarily, how lost I felt. When my fingers danced across the fingerboard of my violin — I could create something beautiful, and something that I wanted… unlike the beer that stuck to my shoes when I returned to my shared apartment each day.

Beethoven’s 9th Symphony was the final piece of our two year series, and it was also my last concert as the concertmaster before I graduated with my Bachelor’s Degree. Beethoven’s 9th is an enormous work of music that features not only a full orchestra, but also a full choir and a quartet of vocal soloists. Our orchestra practiced for months and months to prepare for our final concert… and we had been immersed in Beethoven for years at this point — always talking about the goal of completing all nine symphonies… and now realizing that we were about to do what we had set out to do.

For the record … here’s my favorite recording of the 9th… the last 1.5 minutes of the Symphony are particularly miraculous (especially at the end of the entire thing… treat yourself and listen to it in its entirety!)

A lot of people say that classical music puts them to sleep, but it has the opposite effect on me — particularly Beethoven. I often feel as if I’m picked up by the notes and tossed to and fro — feeling the musical ebbs and flows and being whirled around as they tell a story. The final page of the 9th symphony is, without a doubt, one of the most exciting things that I’ve ever played in my life — It’s hard to describe, but I’m going to try:

Close your eyes and imagine that you feel like the air around you is buzzing with energy. You can feel the energy in every cell of your body — as all of the instruments play together, it creates a sound that is so powerful that you can’t tell where the music ends, and where you begin. You can feel your bow moving… you can feel your fingers moving… and it feels as if you are pouring your heart into each note. As the piece builds to a crescendo, the energy grows and builds and creates a pulsing tension that feels like a musical tiger that needs to be released from a cage. And when it’s released… it roars. Suddenly, you are swept away with the flow of it all — it feels like, for those moments, that you are a part of the universe… creating something with everybody around you and with the audience as you move towards the final note together… and when you arrive at that note, you want to cry and laugh and jump up and down… because you know, without a shadow of a doubt, that you’ve been a part of something miraculous.

When I played Beethoven’s 9th, it was miraculous for a lot of reasons. It was miraculous because Beethoven had given me purpose for two years — Beethoven, my orchestra conductor, and my fellow musicians… we had all showed up, every single week, and we had come together to bring notes on a page to life.

When Beethoven wrote his 9th Symphony, he was completely deaf. I’ve read a lot about the first performance of the 9th Symphony, which is a remarkable story. Another conductor (who wasn’t deaf) actually led the first performance, but Beethoven ‘conducted’ the orchestra symbolically. Since he was deaf, he was a few measures off from where the orchestra was, and apparently, he continued conducting for a short time even after the piece had finished. Somebody at the concert had to get his attention and turn him around to face the audience — which was a wall of madly cheering people who were roaring with applause at the world premiere - applause that Beethoven couldn’t even hear. Every time I listen to the piece now, I think about that moment — I close my eyes, and I imagine the intensity of it for the people who were there. I think about Beethoven — who never was able to hear the greatest piece that he ever composed, and what he must have been feeling. And I think about me — a very lost college student… a lonely ‘weird’ girl who was homeschooled in high school but “we’ll see” how she turns out… and who found a sense of purpose and meaning in that remarkable piece of music 178 years later. If I could go back to any single moment in human history — it would be May 7, 1824. I’d sit in the audience and watch Beethoven conduct the world premiere of his 9th Symphony… and, if I could push my way to the front of the crowd, I’d find a way to tell him thank you.

Actual photo of Beethoven conducting the world premier of the 9th symphony on May 7, 1824. Taken on Samsung Galaxy S9.

Dear AMA,

How did you discover that popcorn gives you tonsillitis?

When I was a little girl, I got tonsilitis a lot. As I got older, I continued to get tonsilitis — almost once a month, predictably. In one of the worst bouts of it in college, the doctor’s clinic actually prescribed me some Tylenol with codeine, and I attempted to attend my 400-level philosophy class about Plato after taking one of the pills. I still remember slowly slumping over in my chair, before my professor finally excused me as I explained that the campus clinic had given me medication for my throat. My tonsilitis got so bad that it would creep into my ear… I could barely swallow at all… and the pain was agonizing. I searched high and low for a solution, and never found one — for some reason, no doctor ever suggested having my tonsils removed.

When I started working for the railroad in 2012, I was still getting tonsilitis almost monthly. I packed my lunch every single day for work — which usually consisted of a wrap sandwich, some fruit, and a small bag of popcorn. I had been gifted a stove-top popcorn popper, and I made homemade popcorn for myself every week, and then brought a bag to work for a snack.

When I met Aaron (my now husband), he was also working for the railroad. We lived about 1 hour away from each other, so one of the only ways that we were able to see each other was to eat our lunch together at work. If I was in the area, I’d stop by his office to visit him on my break. On one such occasion, I pulled out my small bag of popcorn and I asked him if he might be interested in having some of it. He looked at me as he shook his head, “Oh, I can’t eat popcorn… it gives me tonsilitis.” I think that my jaw probably hit the floor at that moment. I had been eating popcorn my entire life. In fact, I was a bit of a popcorn-aholic. I loved popcorn. I loved buttery popcorn. I loved cheesy popcorn. I loved bags of caramel corn. I loved PoppyCock popcorn. If there was a snack that had popcorn in it… I ate it.

The reality of this truth hit me like a bolt of lightning: the snack that I loved more than anything was actually causing the pain that I hated and dreaded each month. Aaron explained to me that a few years prior, he had also been suffering from frequent tonsilitis. He had gone to the dentist, and the dentist had asked him if he ate a lot of popcorn. When Aaron told the dentist that he loved popcorn, the dentist advised him to stop eating it — he said that some people had a propensity to get popcorn stuck in their tonsils, which would cause them to become infected. As Aaron shared this information with me, I horrifyingly realized that I might also be one of those people.

That night, I threw away the rest of my bag of popcorn. I have never eaten popcorn since — and that was over a decade ago now. And do you know what? I’ve never had tonsilitis again… ever. As much as I loved popcorn, it was easy to give it up, since the pain of the tonsilitis was so atrocious that I would have done anything to get rid of it. I’ve always found it pretty remarkable that the one person in the world that I ended up marrying … also ended up being the key to solving my tonsilitis mystery.

One of our favorite restaurants in the PNW is a tiny little spot called The Pines — it looks like a hole in the wall, but they actually have really great food (and fantastic French Fries). The first time we went there, we had to laugh… they immediately brought us our water… and a small dish of gourmet seasoned popcorn as a complimentary snack. We had to explain to the server that we weren’t being rude… but that we simply could not eat popcorn. Now, when we arrive we sit down… and before the server even has a chance, we smile politely and say, “We can’t eat the popcorn. We wish we could… but, it’s a long story.”

Dear AMA,

There’s so much pressure to improve oneself… How does someone get off the self-improvement conveyer belt (or maybe better-put: self-improvement escalator) while still leading a fulfilling life?

My favorite moment in Eckhart Tolle’s book The Power Of Now is the very last line of the book. He is talking about the concept of surrendering to the present moment and being in the now:

When you surrender to what is and so become fully present, the past ceases to have any power. You do not need it anymore. Presence is the key. The Now is the key.

How will I know when I have surrendered?

When you no longer need to ask the question.

First off, I don’t think that there is anything inherently wrong with wanting to improve where you are and to become the best version of yourself — but there is a very important thing that often gets left out in the ‘self improvement’ world. The silent assumption of many self-improvement paths is that there is something wrong with you… or something that you need to fix. What could happen if we let go of the idea that there is anything wrong with us… or anything that needs to be fixed? What if, instead, we decided that we simply wanted to follow a path of constant growth and expansion? In the beginning of my own journey of self-discovery, I turned to a lot of books and podcasts to help me start to understand the process — but after awhile, I got to the point where I felt like I needed to stop listening to what other people were telling me to do… and just start figuring it out myself.

Eckhart Tolle (who is obviously my spiritual self-development hero) often says that his words and writing are ‘sign posts’ that point to the truth, but that the discoveries are there for each of us to learn on our own. A few years ago, I actually had to stop listening to a lot of self-development work, because I realized that it was no longer helping me to listen to stories of people who were living in a place of scarcity or fear or anger. I could empathize with them, but I could no longer relate to them — and I knew that my focus was more productive if I could continue to direct it towards the things that I wanted to create in the world.

This photo was taken a year ago this week. I highly recommend photoshopping a cat into more photos an important part of your personal development.

I definitely believe that there can be too much of a ‘good thing’. At times, I’ve noticed that if I am reading too much personal development material, I’ll find myself overthinking what I’m doing. “Did I just focus on something bad?” “Am I thinking too much?” “Is my energetic vibration in alignment with the moon?” “Should I put a crystal in a bowl of salt near my bed?” “I probably deserve this.” “I’m definitely not good enough yet — it’s probably because I got mad at that barista who screwed up my chai.” The list could go on all day long (for the record, I’ve never been mad about a chai). If you find yourself obsessing over everything you are doing… and if you find yourself obsessing over whether or not you are doing things right… that might be a sign that it is time to take a little bit of a break from personal development… and give yourself some time and space to just live.

When we jump into the personal development space, we are often doing so from a place of TRYING to achieve some result in the future. Namely, we complicate things… a lot. TRYING to work hard to ‘fix ourselves’ is very exhausting, and it ultimately comes from a place of lack about who we are. Growth and expansion are the opposite of trying. Growth and expansion happen when we live our lives from a place of allowing things to bloom organically and naturally, without needing anything to be different than where we are right now. If it feels good to you — read the personal development books that you feel called to read… keep things that feel good to you and ditch anything that doesn’t… and then plant the seeds of goodness, and water them by living your life, in the best way that you know how. It might be messy at times, but truly, there is no handbook for your life. That is something that you are writing, in every moment of every single day.

If I were to give non-personal development advice to somebody who was exhausted about personal development, I’d probably say something like this: Put down the books and the podcasts and go on a hike or spend time outside. Do something creative. Have fun, in anyway that feels good to you. Laugh with your friends. Read a mystery novel. Solve a complicated puzzle. Eat something good. Write a story. Dress up in a silly costume and take photos. Dance until your feet hurt. Jump in the air. Be in the moment as much as you can, and trust that your heart will lead the way. No book can capture the essence of who you are — no book can possibly comprehend the complexity and brilliance of you. It’s not wrong to want to become the best version of who you can be… but you also must know that you are the best version of you in every moment… and that where you are is not wrong. In fact, where you are is very important — because it is where you are that will lead you to where you want to go. It is in accepting ourselves and then through following our heart that we will blaze our own trail. Without really even trying, the universe itself will open its doors and give you the space to bloom like you were meant to.

Friends, thank you so much for being here this week (and every single week). I’ve been writing The Kula Diaries consistently for over 6 months (!!) now, and every single week it brings a lot of joy into my life. Writing every single week was one of the things that I decided to do from a place of following my own heart and inner guidance — and it has led me to beautiful and unexpected places. I feel really grateful that I have carved out this tiny nook in the universe and that I get the opportunity to share with all of you every single week.

Wherever you are right now, I hope that you feel a sense of ease, peace and joy in your life. The ripple of love that you send out into the world each day matters very much — please know how much you are loved.

P.S. If you’d like to submit a question to be considered for a future AMA, you can do that right here using the Kula Diaries Vault. Thank you all so much for your submissions, they mean a lot to me!