Today, I’m going to start with our bonus question, because it’s a fun one and I’d love to answer it:
Dear AMA,
Where did the BEAUTIFUL watercolor paintings come from that accompany your posts?
Some of the watercolor paintings I’ve shared are mine… you can tell if it’s mine, because it’ll look like this:
I started an (almost) nightly painting practice in October of 2021… and I’ve been slowly filling up notebooks with simple watercolors of places I’ve been - combined with quotes that speak to me. I hand letter the quotes onto the painting - and that is definitely the most time consuming, but also a very meditative part of the practice.
I also love to write poems, and so some of the other images that you see in my posts are images that I create using various watercolors on Canva … with the addition of my own small poems. This image below is a combination of watercolor elements and a small poem that I wrote. I try to write simple poems that I can share throughout the weekly posts that help to capture the essence of the overall message:
I can’t claim any credit for the beautiful art that I select for each of these images (I owe my Canva Pro Monthly Membership for that)… but I do intentionally try to create little poems that you could easily remember and repeat if you find yourself in a moment of difficulty or if you are feeling ‘stuck’ in your own mind. I call these ‘disruptor’ poems, because I use them as tiny mantras when I am in the midst of diving down a rabbit hole that doesn’t feel good. The disruptor poems have the beautiful ability to remind me that I’m OK right now, in this moment.
I am so thrilled to hear that you like the poems and art - feel free to download them or screenshot them to your phone and save them in an album if it is helpful for you to have them as a little ‘mindfulness’ tool in your back pocket.
Ok… and now for our 2nd question…
Dear AMA:
I feel completely and absolutely stuck. I don’t like where I am, but I don’t see a possible way out. I hate my job, but I can’t leave it - I know I want to do something else, but I don’t even know where to start. Please help.
First off, I want to acknowledge that the feeling of being stuck is not fun. I’ve been there, and it really sucks. It feels like you woke up one day… looked at your life… and said, “How in the HECK did I end up here?” When I was a kid, I felt so full of hope and possibility about the things that I could do with my life - and then (unbeknownst to me) I went on autopilot for decades and suddenly ended up in a job that I didn’t want… and I barely recognized the negative, complaining person that I had become.
So, let’s start with the really good news: You aren’t stuck. Yes, it might feel like that right now - but I promise that you aren’t. So, breathe a big sigh of relief and just say this to yourself: I’m not stuck at all - it just seems that way - and I’m going to figure this out, even though I don’t know how yet. Doesn’t that feel better already?
In my last Sunday post, I talked about the super powerful universal energetic hedge trimmer that we unintentionally use to shear off all of the ‘energetic threads’ that are connecting us to the infinite possibilities that exist in every single moment of life. The way to get ‘unstuck’ is to be open to the possibilities… and to allow yourself to create a vision of what you want… without needing to know how it could be possible. When I say it like that - it actually sounds pretty simple… and guess what? It is! We were just really never taught how to do it - and so we have become extremely good at arguing for our limitations almost immediately.
When I first left my job at the railroad to start my own company, people started saying things to me like, “Oh wow… I would love to do that… but I could never do that. I have a mortgage… and kids… and my retirement… and I’m too old … etc… etc…”. Now, this is very important: I am NOT telling you that you are in a position right now where you can leave your current job or specific life situation. It would be an incredibly misguided and preemptive thing for me to say, “Just leave your job.” So, I want to make it very clear that I do understand that people are in different and sometimes complicated life situations with very different financial, health and family responsibilities. There are so many factors - and each of us is in a unique circumstance. What I want to suggest to you is that, regardless of your current life situation, you do have the ability to be open to a potential solution that honors, includes and merges your dreams and responsibilities into a feasible and creative life path.
Let me give you an example: If you are the person who is currently saying, “I can’t do this because of my kids, mortgage, health, age etc…” How does it feel instead to say, “I don’t know how it is possible yet - but I am open to a vision for my life that includes creating the things that are important to me while providing abundantly for my family and maintaining my health and wellness and financial responsibilities in any number of infinite ways?” Doesn’t that sound and feel a lot better than… “This isn’t possible.”? In the moment that you say, “I don’t know how… but I’m open”…. you have put the universal energetic hedge trimmer back into the shed for the season. Suddenly, your energetic threads are starting to bloom and grow again - connecting you to ideas, inspiration and opportunities that would never be possible if you didn’t believe that they were.
This is not an overnight shift, because each of us is essentially a broken record of lack and limiting beliefs: we repeat, ad nauseum, the things that we were taught about money and ‘responsibility’ and what is ‘realistic’…. and as we do that, we continue to hit the ‘repeat’ button on our current life situation - which is what gives us the feeling that we are stuck. When, really, we are just (unintentionally) walking in place on a universal treadmill holding a very strange hedge trimmer that is cutting us off from the miraculousness of who we truly are. If that isn’t an odd mental picture, I’m not sure what is. And, because I’m ‘extra’ like that… here’s a video to help you envision it:
So, if you are ‘stuck’ right now - the best place to start is exactly there. You feel stuck… you aren’t sure what to do… and it sucks. Close your eyes for a moment and feel the sensation of stuckness. Feel the not-knowing of what to do. Allow yourself to fully feel this sensation as the watcher of your thoughts. Imagine that you are seeing these things on a blank canvas (your consciousness): they are there… but they are not you. Tara Brach writes an incredible book called Radical Compassion, and in that book she details a process called R.A.I.N.: Recognize, Allow, Investigate and Nurture. From your feeling of stuckness… can you allow it to be? Can you say YES to the feeling of being stuck and simply notice that it is there? Can you accept it right now? See if you can - and see what happens when you shine the light of your awareness onto that feeling. And then… softly ask yourself, “What do I need?”
I did an exercise many years ago with some inner child work where I saw my 8 year old self and asked her what she needed. I was sitting on a beach in Mexico at a retreat when I did this, and the facilitator of the experience asked me to close my eyes and see myself as a child. Almost instantly, I saw the most vivid image: A spunky little 8 year old me with misshapen chopped bangs (because I had hacked them with a pair of scissors), wearing a purple soccer uniform. As I saw this little girl in my mind, I gasped and wept audibly - she was so tiny and so hopeful and so full of life. What had happened to her? Well, as it turns out - she was still with me - and she needed to be told how much she was loved… and that her ideas weren’t silly or dumb… and that she wasn’t a disappointment… and that she was capable of anything she put her mind to. I sat on the beach that night in a circle of people and sobbed so hard that when I came out of it… I felt… an emptiness. A space that hadn’t existed before - like my heart had opened to something that I had forgotten was there.
This is the space that opens up when you remember the preciousness that has always and will always be within you. It has never been gone. It is still there - even now. It is the truest essence of who you are.
For me, I needed to know that I was loved. While I grew up in a very loving home - I had unconsciously become dependent on needing validation from others in order to feel loved or worthy. It was only when I began to discover the love within my own heart - it was only when I learned to love myself - that the feeling of being ‘stuck’ was transmuted into creative energy that allowed me to be open to the infinite possibilities of life.
Once you go through the process of accepting where you are - you can begin to shift to being open to another reality. You can start to tell yourself, “I don’t know how this is possible, but I believe that it is.” Let go of needing to know how or what - just being open is enough to start. If you catch yourself feeling stuck again… simply notice that old pattern, acknowledge it, and come back to a feeling of openness. If that’s not possible for you - ask yourself this question:
When do I feel the most open and alive?
For some people - that might be while you are spending time outside… it might be while you are listening to music or dancing or creating art or writing. Whatever it is for you… instead of trying to force yourself to feel open… do something that allows you to tap into a sense of openness without you trying to do it.
Once you are feeling more open and more hopeful - now, you can begin to create your vision. I’ve described this process a little bit before, but it’s important to share often, because our brains love to jump back into the ‘rinse and repeat’ cycle if we aren’t actively working to create something new.
In a way that feels good to you - begin to envision what it is you want to create. You do not need to know any details - but if you are able to see some of the details and they feel exciting to you: write them down or speak them into your voice recorder on your phone or paint a picture that represents them. Here are some small prompts that can help you:
See if you can do this exercise without needing to know how any of this is possible - simply trusting that in some way, that you cannot possibly predict or know right now, it is. If it feels good to focus on physical details (i.e. your dream house or job, etc…) you can do that… but the most important thing you can do is to notice the feeling of this reality: free, creative, fun, playful, adventurous, energetic, peaceful, happy, abundant, full of life, exciting… etc… you get to choose what you want it to look like.
Now, from a place of being open + having a vision of what you want to create: It’s the fun part. Now, you get to embody those feelings now. That’s right… the feelings that you want to experience in your life will not arrive once the new reality shows up on your doorstep. Au contraire, my friends - it is the opposite: The new reality will show up on your doorstep once you embody those feelings now.
If you are not in a place to embody those feelings at this moment - that’s OK too. Remember, you are starting where you are… and taking tiny, gentle forward steps in a slightly better feeling direction. You do not need to jump the impossible chasm from despair to bliss. All you need to do is find one, teeny tiny slightly better feeling place to being the process of pulling yourself towards the things that you want to create.
A real life example
I can’t speak for any other human on this planet - so I’m going to speak for myself. This process of moving forward and creating is an ongoing process - which means that, even though I followed this exact process, and did ultimately create a life and job that I think is pretty darn cool … we are all in the process of creating, at all times. You are creating right now (whether you know it or not), and I am too. That being said - the goal of creation does shift and change. Less than a decade ago, I was creating from a place of wanting something different in my life - namely, I thought that things would be ‘better’ once the external aspects of my life were changed. However, what I discovered through this journey is that I am, and always have been, completely whole exactly as I am - independent of anything outside of me. Once you deeply embody this truth - your creations take on a new light, because they are no longer coming from a place of, ‘I need this to happen’… rather, you create because you want to bring more good to others, and you want to use your own experience to bring more love, consciousness and presence into the world.
I’m going to share this next bit as an ‘experiment’ with all of you - which will hopefully both demonstrate and bring to life the creative process that I go through. Currently, as I perform my daily meditations and/or visualizations, I’ve been focusing my attention forward on these things:
paying off my house
finding a home for the Kula Cloth HQ
creating peace and ease in my day
launching a successful motorcycle gear company that has a product sold by Revzilla
Let me be perfectly honest with all of you: I have no idea how any of these things are going to happen for me. My ‘thinking’ brain would probably tell me the following:
“You need to sell X-amount of Kula Cloths in order to make enough money to be able to afford a building… or even remotely get close to paying off your house… and it’s going to take quite some time to do that… and good luck getting a product into Revzilla… nobody even knows who you are yet… oh, and peace and ease? Good luck… you’re an entrepreneur and you signed up for this sh*t, Anastasia.”
But, all of that does not feel good. And it hurts my brain to try to think of ‘how’ this could all happen. So, I asked myself the following question: How do these things feel? And this is what I came up with:
Then, as I looked at this list of feelings, I asked myself another question: From exactly where I am, what can I do to feel these feelings now?
And my answer for that is:
Over the course of this process, I started to ‘hone’ in on the feeling of this building… on the feeling of my house being paid off… on the feeling of my motorcycle gear company… and on the feeling of ease and calm. During my daily visualizations, without needing anything in my life right now to change, I focus my attention of seeing these things as if they are real right now - and allowing myself to feel them, simply for the joy of feeling them! Afterall - I AM THE SOURCE of these feelings… not the ‘things’ that I attribute them to. I release the need to try and go ‘get’ something in order to feel better - I try my best to sink into the feeling of allowing. I try my best to stay present, abundant and connected to myself.
So what’s happened so far? Well… a few things… my motorcycle company is actually getting started (stay tuned) with one piece of gear that I actually just submitted a patent application for - how cool is that?! I don’t have a building for Kula Cloth yet - but I can feel it… and one day I had a complete ‘whim’ of inspiration to create this page on our website… and then out of the blue a few days ago, I decided to post a listing to Craigs List (actually, inspired by this Substack… because I 'remembered’ how much magic my last Craigs List posting had worked in my life). In the meantime, I’ve been dancing… designing t-shirts (which has turned into a randomly profitable ‘side hustle’)… baking cookies, writing a new book that I had an idea for… painting… riding my motorcycle and giving out Kulas to random people… and, in general, just having fun exactly where I am.
All of this to say: I have no clue how things are going to unfold, but I know that the energy is out there and I know that all of the ingredients are mixing together as I write this - and so I wait, on the edge of my seat, for the magical, unexpected way that it will all work out.
I get it. This might seem far-fetched to some folks… and maybe it lacks a feeling of ‘working hard’ and ‘getting out there and getting the job done’ - but I promise you that it is easy and enjoyable and magical - and when things begin to fall into place in unexpected ways, and you know without a shadow of a doubt that it was your creative energy that brought together so much goodness… you can’t help but feel the love of the entire universe in every cell of your body. It’s truly an experience that will help you understand the true meaning of the word abundance and love.
As the months progress… and as I continue writing in The Kula Diaries… it is my truest hope that my own story of creation can ‘come to life’ for you - as undeniable proof of this process… not just for me… but most importantly, for you. It is my absolute deepest desire that sharing these diaries provides the inspiration, nudge and hope that you need to start your own journey of looking within and allowing your own beautiful creations to come to life. It doesn’t have to be a business or a product - it can be anything you want it to be - but the important thing is that you are bringing more love into the world - and remembering how very important you are.
Thank you so much for being here. I do not take it for granted that you are choosing to read something that I wrote - it means so much to me to be able to share these words with you - and I hope that you are finding some truth in the spaces between.
If you have a question or a comment for AMA with AMA you can submit it anonymously to me at this link … or just send it to my e-mail directly at anastasia@kulacloth.com
Sending you all a lot of love today!
Love,
Anastasia
I loved everything about this ❤️