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This weekend I flew to California for the first time to attend the Women’s Visionary Congress. I can’t imagine a better reason to visit the West Coast for the first time.

I recorded a short video about my experience there.

To be honest I didn’t know what to expect from my travels, I found a lot more than I bargained for in a wonderful way– amazing people, profound ideas, and deep sense of understanding of some problems I had been sorting through lately.

I’m truly feeling blesed that I went with my gut and came here! So thankful to my friends, old and new, that welcomed me here. 

I have a feeling that I will be coming back many times, but for now I have work to finish on the East Coast. 🙂

My first look at the Pacific Ocean

 

So Little Mermaid-y! This weekend I felt called to perform a Sound Healing in a way I never have before.

I really let my voice sing freely. I felt like Ariel and I so enjoyed the transformation that came to be in the space I was holding for my new friend, for her and myself as well.

As I relaxed in the hot tub I felt I had so much inspiration I needed to use it so I offered a few brand new friends some chakra readings.

Another night I felt so drawn to connect with others that I offered to lead an open circle outside with whoever would like to send some intention out for the rest of the world. Hope, beauty and song surrounded us under the stars.

I invited others out of calling and excitement. Later I realized I had created an event I had always dreamed about but I’ve never had the opportunity before. MD is not such an open state.

It really warmed my heart that even in the middle of California I still had something unique and magical to offer.

Kind of made me feel like maybe I should make a move…for right now though I am tied to MD.

I’ve come out of this with a new sense of worth of my gifts and what I have to offer to the world.

If you are interested in a service please contact me at sofia at sofiawren dot com, because the prices will be going up soon 🙂

It takes courage to write. It takes courage to express a deeper dream.

It’s more comfortable to be confused than focused. It’s more comfortable to be lazy than driven.

Or if you are driven, it’s more comfortable to overwhelm yourself with everything you “need” to get done than to objectively evaluate and pare down with confidence.

It’s more comfortable to go it alone than to make a real commitment by investing in support.

Because maybe it would really freak you out to be successful. That might change your life, relationships and everything you know.

But the dream doesn’t go away.

I would know.

Since I rediscovered my creativity in 2009 I feel like I unraveled every kind of block there is.

And there are still more, there will always be more.

Something is unfurling for me though….a clarity, a determination, a vision. And it’s 2013.

This last year, I have to say, I completely accelerated the progress.

I’m on the precipice of crossing over into everything I have always wanted with an amazing array of skills, knowledge and integration never before achieved.

It’s more than just getting ready to publish: my book is going to be a footstop to establish my brand and lead into my coaching business for a sustainable income and career as an artist.

And I’m going to tell you how I got here when a year ago I was an office manager with a massage certification and no clients, going through the motions of my life.

As an intuitive it amazes me how difficult it is to read for myself.

What I mean is, I can objectively sense information about people I have never met before who are timezones away.

I can sense energy patterns, habits that cause imbalance, greatest talents and the things getting in there way. I can jot everything down and make a private video about it within a half hour.

But it can take me months to see my own flaws.

I can ask my angels and guides for information but my ego and my limitations can still get in the way of the honest truth and clarity I can offer other people.

I don’t think I’m that different than other people in this: We all live in a glass box that we can’t even see.

The ways in which we stand in our own way are insidious.

To birth a creation, a business, a new way of life requires not just new skills and knowledge and expertise, but new pathways in your brain.

I believe that inside of us we all carry everything we need to make our dreams happen.

Problem is most of us were never raised this way.

Problem is most of us were raised with a lot of rules and limitations that we sucked up from our parents, peers and society.

If you want to start playing big, if you want to not only be published but to be recognized as an author, to come out of hiding, to embrace the freedom of creating your own life rather than taking what is dealt to you—-then you need help.

2009 was four years ago, for three years I swam it out on my own.

I wrote three pages a day, edited in chunks every day.

By the end of those three years I didn’t feel like I was closer to a clear vision of what I was going to do with any of those pages.

I felt like I had the same sort of job that I had IN college. Office administration.  A little bit of everything.

I worked for other people who had started their own business and I did all the unfun part of it that actually kept things going.

And one day I picked up the phone, feeling unpaid and overloaded and trapped, and two calls in a row people said my name back to me incorrectly.

I gave my best customer service. The second time I put the phone down with a slam.

How could they not know my name, when I run this place??

By November I started hiring coaches.

Better than any information products or online courses is a real person.

A real person reflecting who I wanted to be not who I had been.

Friends and family are great support, but they don’t see you in the future.

And because that’s awesome, I pretty much didn’t want to disappoint my coaches, so I stepped up to do the specific goal and time oriented tasks on route to the goal I picked for myself.

About two months ago I had a program I built to bring blocked writers into inspiration, focus and flow in 13 weeks.

Somehow I got off track…let’s just say something fell through and I didn’t even realize I dropped the whole thing to start over.

Two months I feel like I wasted some big opportunities to spread my message.

I have a whole lot of spiritual tools up my sleeve and I used them. In hindsight the messages were there but because ti was my life, I couldn’t see.

I needed coaches to give me feedback, to see my gifts, to help me shape things, and to overcome the last leap to bring it into the world. 

I could still be reinventing the wheel rather than committing to helping a population of creative writers that I really love.

It’s more comfortable to have multiple projects than to commit to one for worse….or even for better.

Surprisingly fear of success is just as big a pitfall as fear of failure.

It’s more comfortable to hide, to be small….today…but one day it won’t be. 

One day every dream swimming around in you right now is going to strike your status quo like a thunder bolt.

What if you invested in support before you got so sick of your dayjob that you have to quit?

What if you had help to plan your novel before you wrote it messy style and made it take three times as long to edit?

What if you got support on your block so you could get back to writing and produce amazing content sooner rather than later?

At every step of the creative process from generating ideas, to organizing them, to putting them out into the world, to creating a profession that will use all of your creative gifts, it would be a whole hell of a lot easier if you had someone to help you.

Are you ready to make the commitment now? Or shall you wait it out until the explosion?

When you are ready, you will be ready.

Sometimes breakthrough comes after breakdown.

But I want your life to be as amazing as you dream, and as easy as possible.

If you are ready for my help, I’m here to hold your hand, to offer perspective, new techniques, and a sacred space for you to bloom.

Fill this form out the for a free Blast Your Blocks Session with me.

Inspiration. Clarity. Freedom.

You ready?

 

In the last post Self Sabotage New Moon I vowed to take a weekend off from passive entertainment including the internet, social media, reading, listening to recorded voice or radio, and watching TV.

This proved to be a very difficult endeavor. But I am glad I did it all the same. 

First I will describe the benefits of the media diet and second I will admit all the ways in which I cheated.

So there is something about taking a couple days off of social media and all that.

Life has more space. 

It kind of reminds me of my youth when I didn’t have all these distractions—before I got a game boy and when tv was too boring to watch, on vacation with no internet or cell service and I could only read so much in a day anyway.

It reminded me that it is possible to pay full attention to people we are with, that life can be done one thing at a time. 

Without passive entertainment, the easiest thing I can think of for killing time is meditating.

Every time someone with me checked their phone or I felt that pull myself, I would be struck with a thought like —oh yeah, wow it’s so weird. 

Weird to want to keep checking, weird not to.

I’d look out the window instead and just observe the reality around me.

Here are all the admitted ways in which I cheated:

I scheduled multiple posts for every day, so I did still have a media presence.

Friday was reallly hard. As the first day I unplugged I got off to a bad start immediately.

Having a phone that likes to update me about everything in my online universe I quickly realized that there was an outstanding invitation from a friend, actually a couple that I should really respond to ASAP.

This got me facebooking and then I quickly began to do specific practical things online but not requiring much reading like approving Triberr posts and scheduling acupuncture. 

I had a peek at my emails to see if there was anything good by the titles. Not much.

I didn’t do any reading…that is until I got settled in a cafe and read over instructions to fill out third quarter documents.

I was doing my 3rd quarterly planning and I needed to check stats for social media, websites, etc That’s what really got me into trouble as I couldn’t help but repost a status (and leave one) on facebook as well as responding to my personal messages on twitter. 

I love social media. Too much.

Friday I was so bad! My boyfriend gave me crap for it as well as for stubbornly refusing to not watch tv.

That’s when I learned that cutting passive entertainment is a great time to sit with unsettled feelings and to get into fights.

Saturday:

Better. I left my cellphone alone for the most part

Had in person entertainment to distract me. Went to the gym.

Decided that tarot reading doesn’t count as reading even if I look at my tarot book.

Not quite sure why that is ok, but it feels ok.

Sunday and Monday evening I broke down and started watching tv. Television has become such a social activity.

And it was the season finale of Game of Thrones.

On the plus side Monday night I really enjoyed Cave of Forgotten Dreams, a documentary on the oldest cave drawings found in France.

Monday I shamelessly went into my email and responded to personal communications.

If I did all of this while cheating, how much passive entertainment do I normally do?

A lot. I’m one of those people 

I normally pull out a book for a one minute grocery line.

I check my texts at a stop light.

I listen to webinars for every drive.

I eat while learning from audio or video classes.

I read to sleep and when I wake up.

I create reasons to use social media or check emails probably ten times a day.

So this was a good exercise for me. I will continue the challenge of avoiding passive entertainment….

So yeah sorry for getting back late.

Love
Sofia Wren.

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From Doreen Virtue

Doreen Virtue posted ” This week’s energy is about revealing hidden secrets. You are being pushed to get brutally honest with yourself. Everything that you’ve pretended to like will come to the surface, forcing you to deal with it directly… 

Your best way to handle — and even enjoy — this energy is to take quiet rest time to contemplate your entire life. Admit which parts of our life aren’t working. This knowledge will help you to make important decisions which will help with healthful life changes.

Don’t worry about HOW to change these areas of your life. Just focus upon admitting that these areas need help. Pray for help and guidance, and notice the signs and inner guidance which follows. Healthful life changes can happen quickly and miraculously if you’ll work in partnership with Heaven.”

Are You Receiving the Juice? Pic by Sofia Wren

Trying to make your dreams come true? Are you getting frustrated, making vision boards, visualizing your success, using affirmations and seeing nada?

Well maybe you are skipping a step.

The following post rings true for me lately.

I will probably spend my entire life sorting out this one lesson — learning to receive. 

It’s very important as a creative, sensitive entrepreneur. I always want more inspiration, more intuitive pings, more money and clients rolling in.

But what if I’m standing in my own way?

In the Law of Attraction ‘Bible’ Ask and it is Given by Ester Hicks and Abraham, there are three steps mapped out for receiving anything you desire (ever).

1. Ask.

Life is full of contrasts which allow you to have certain preferences. You express this as a desire (said or not) about how you’d like things to be.

Since quantum physics teaches us that everything in the universe is really a kind of vibration, your desire or asking sends out a frequency.

2. It is Given

The Universe supports you in providing what you asked for by pairing your desire frequency with something similar in nature. I.e. What you asked for!

Of course if you ask for “NOT a sh*t car” then that causes a problem. The Universe won’t process the “NOT” and will continue to bring you a Sh*t car that doesn’t work.

Hence the importance of being clear about what you want instead of what sucks.

Where you put your focus boosts the request frequency that will be matched with the Universe’s gift to you.

3. It is received.

HELLO—Is this you? Is this the reason you aren’t getting what you want?

When the universe comes to deliver the match to the frequency you sent out in the first place, are you home to take the package?

In order to receive what you want, you need to be on the same level of frequency as what you want.

So if you are looking for a dream house and you are so stuck in hating where you live right now, what you really want isn’t going to match up with what you want now.

You could see an ad, and come up with a billion excuses as why it won’t work out.

Package returned to sender.

I’d like to give you a big example from my life:

–My old pen names were very complicated: Sofia D’oro, Wren Doloro, my birth name. I agonized over whether these were good or I should change them and how to juggle profiles, blogs and stuff for each of them.

I wished I could just be like a normal person with one identity. Too bad my erotic writing would probably ruin my reputation as a massage therapist, and being open about my Wiccan Priestess-ness would also weird people out even if they liked .

One day my boyfriend tells me I don’t need a million pen names separate from my massage business. It is actually possible I will be accepted for who I am by everyone–readers, clients, my family. And it would be less work.

Instead of hearing, I listen to the fears and freak out having no idea how that is possible because I am too weird. Still have separate websites.

One year later I hire a couple coaches to help me figure things out about my pen names and brand. They tell me to combine everything under one name and bring up my vibration so I could see how empowering and awesome this would be. I said yes and let them take me by the hand.

Hence my current name: Sofia Wren

Now wouldn’t it have been cool to do that a year ago? Wouldn’t have been so hard.

But I had so much resistance I made a mess to clean up and have to pay for this lesson in time, energy and money.

It is so common to stand in the way of what we really want. 

A lot of us weren’t raised to believe that the Universe is made to support us. That we have to work really hard for what we want because it is NOT going to drop into our lap.

Unfortunately that attitude is a block to receiving.

What if we are causing the problems?

Have you had an argument where the other people suddenly conceded and gave you everything you wanted? Did you find yourself unsatisfied and needing to run through your whole argument again?

Did you ever get something you wanted only for it to cause as much stress in your life as things before it?

Remedies:

• Practice Gratitude for the things in your life anytime you get in a funk.
• Keep your eye on the prize—prepare yourself to receive by allowing things to work out with a little patience.
• Recognize you aren’t fully in control and sometimes what you want will look different than expected. But for every problem you come up with, exercise some faith that a solution will come your way.
• Stay positive by calling in all the emotions you would feel if your dreams came true. This brings you to the vibration of receiving your ideal life.

That way when the universe comes a knocking with everything you have always wanted, you will be right at the door.

xx Sofia Wren

PS. You need a coach to hold your hand through receiving what you desire, contact me at sofia at sofiawren dot com for a free Manifest Goddess Coaching session.

 

Stephanie Carovella left her career, her friends and her home town of Los Angeles, but she couldn’t outrun the demons on her past. When she is lured back by the death of her best friend she enters a world where no one’s safe.

As her deepest and darkest secrets are revealed, Stephanie must find out who she can trust.

Will it be Jesse Carlisle? Her ex-lover and the man she left behind. He would give anything to have her back in his arms, but is it enough?

Or will it be Jase Devlin? Her best friend’s boyfriend, and a man with secrets as dark and dangerous as her own.

Can Stephanie find her friend’s killer or will she discover that she has nowhere to run?

Nina D’Angelo told us all about her book in her Passionate guestpost. It’s climbed to be one of the most popular posts of 2013.

I used to focus this blog on book reviews, but these days I try to keep them to twice a month.

So for me to review a book says something about the quality, even though I’m a picky b*tch. And proud of it!

Here’s the skinny:

1. Page turner (once you hit the third chapter)

The main beef I have with this book is that there are so many characters. I felt like I was being hit over the head with character background from the very beginning.

In the first scene the protagonist is flying to LA for the first time after a long gap. As she sits there she decides to review all the complicated relationships she will be entering into again.

We writers call this an info dump and it’s a no no.

But you would be missing out to stop reading then. Keep reading because it gets really juicy.

I read it over an international flight, and I liked it so much that I was actually reading my kindle as I strolled through the airport. (Yeah, that’s me!)

2. Suspenseful emotions

The book has the vibe of gritty emotions and drama. It reminds me of YA literature because it is so intense, but it’s definitely adult.

There’s a love pentagon or something, and frienemies and secrets.

It’s pretty nuts. But interesting. Interesting nuts.

3. Dark Dark Dark

Stephanie is a criminal profiler at heart. She spends her time trying to get into the mind of a killer that is coming after her and her friends.

Dark stuff man.

But it sure keeps those pages flipping.

Highly recommended! Thanks for the great read Nina.

xx Sofia

 

The Durga Girls Alana and Ali with me at Karma Fest May 25

Another month forward on the journey to grow my creative business that will allow me to be authentic and help people in the most profound way possible. This has been a very intense month. At times it really has been a struggle to pick myself up and keep going. The reason is that as I push forward now, I am crossing over from the developmental stage into manifesting into reality.

Time to drop the limitations. Time to heal the wounds. Time to drop the crappy beliefs about what I am worth, about what I can DO not just think and scribble on my to do list. Who I can help, who would possibly give me money to help them. Maybe you can relate—maybe you follow your passions for free with enthusiasm, but as soon as you think about charging money, a whole chorus of negative voices comes out to play.

Two days ago for the first time ever, I organized myself and headed to KarmaFest as a vender for the festival. All week long I was crazy busy gathering all my supplies, putting together forms and materials to hand out.

I made a brand new sign for my business Manifest Goddess.

I planned to hang it on my tent–a brand new pop up tent complete with flaps to keep my massage clients private.

It was a very sunny but windy day. Within an hour of putting up the tent and staking it, the whole thing fell over. The metal crumpled and I didn’t feel certain I could put it back up and keep my clients safe. So I had to ditch it 🙁 I did my best to stay positive for the rest of the day. Only bad thing was that I ended up getting bad sunburn on my hands! Never had that before but hand sanitizer makes skin more sensitive.

Apparently you can buy weights for a tent. Life is a learning experience.

I taped the sign to my tent and tied it with rope. Slowly everything fell over and I had to tape it in place. My flowers kept falling so I had to rope them to the bottom of my table. While waiting for clients I gave my partners and our friend freebies. For three hours sitting by my table my friend had barely said a word. During the ceremony I spotted a bunch of dark junk gathered at his throat chakra and cleared it out with reiki, a visualization technique, my flute, crystals, and my singing. He sat up on the table and was talking a mile a minute! We both felt great afterwards.

By late afternoon it was still windy and chilly and I had had very little work so far. My friends packed up but I stayed. Because I stuck it out, a whole crowd of clients paid me a visit during the second half of the day, even though I’d had only one paying client the previous five hours! Thanks to that, I learned something new about myself: my massage specialty of neck pain and migraine relief. This must be because any time I eat wheat, my neck tightens up and I have to massage it back into shape. Super good to know how I can set myself apart!

I’ve had special training, too, but maybe my personal experience is why one woman said I was only one of three therapists to be able to relieve her neck pain in 23 years! Wahoo. Her neck spasms made her feel so awful that her daughter feared they’d have to leave the festival. I enjoyed relieving her pain and talking to these two very cool ladies.

After the massage she felt so great that many hours later at the end of the night they came back to say goodbye and another thank you. I got a lot of questions on what chakras are, what the readings are for, and how sound healing works. I’ll be making some Youtube videos about these topics soon. These newer services really excite me and light me up to share. All in all it’s been a productive month but there is still a lot on my plate to build my business.

For those of you out there building a business or working on a creative project, the most important thing is to keep on going. 

I would never have made it to KarmaFest if I let the doubts reign. If I listened to the little voices that said I couldn’t hack it or my business cards weren’t perfect, and I haven’t updated my site yet, and blah blah blah

Nothing is ever perfect. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

I had my dips, like when I walked away from the florist being pissed they put yellow flowers in my bouquet rather than white (arrgh now it will look crazy on my paisley tablecloth!) or when I realized the face rest for the massage table disappeared the morning I had to go (solution–better buy some pillowcases before I hit the highway). 

This month has been one of the hardest of my journey into self-employment. For weeks I have been journaling through my blocks, digging deep to decide where to focus my coaching, finding myself on the verge of tears, feeling like how can I possibly do this? Anytime I found myself stepping closer to what I should be doing, a whole new obstacle course has revealed itself inside my mindbody and spirit.

Getting started is really hard. It takes courage, it takes faith, and it takes huge mountains of self-love. Be gentle. But I did it. I made back the money to pay for the rent of the space. Gave out lots of cards, learned some new things, and I’m better prepared for everything I do going on. Thank goodness I stayed.

Break downs are often on the edge of breakthroughs. Push forward. Make a to do list. Start with the top. 

You can do it. 

I didn’t think I could. And I couldn’t in the shape I was in one month ago. I had to use all the pressure of this month to burst into someone bigger. 

Easy? No. Worth it? Definitely. 

xx Sofia Wren

I want to tell you a story of a little girl who loved to sing. 

When I was a little girl I sang all the time. I especially loved the part from The Little Mermaid where Ariel is just singing this repeating melody while the prince falls in love with her. “AAA aaa AAA aaa.”

I watched that and Beauty and the Beast on Repeat. I also loved Rainbow Brite and some Barbie Rockstar movies because of the singing.

I collected Betty Boop (and many other) stickers just because she had a theme song I liked.

I loved the girl dinosaur from Barnie and made my dad donate money to PBS so I could have a stuffed animal. This was before the updates to the costumes made their head so squished.

When I was seven and we entered a more prosperous period, my dad bought a keyboard.  I remember it played the melody of  “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go.” I would dance around it as the melody played and drive my dad crazy as I played it again and again.

I did that also by playing the Clueless soundtrack, you know the “and my hair will shine like the sea, seeee-eee-eee” song.

Luckily being a musician my dad was pretty tolerant of all of this nonsense. 

At times I would ask him to give me a topic and I would make a song out of it. He’d say one thing and I’d reject in favor of flowers or rainbows or something totally different.

In fifth grade I reached my peak by lip sinking “Spice Up Your Life” at a Talent Show. I was sporty which was awesome because I could do this sweet spinning kick I learned in karate.

Early in middle school I met friends that I still hang out with today. We recorded our own video to “Heartbreaker” by Mariah Carey.

Shortly after entering middle school we entered the age of self consciousness.

 I talk about my trials in my short story “How I Became a Writer and a Witch” but in sum, something happened to suck the fun out of singing.

I became afraid to sing because I have a hard time remembering lyrics. For me it’s the same as directions–I need like 20 repetitions to consistently spit out the same words. Don’t ask me why.

Looking back now I know I have a great memory for the sounds of songs, and I can make up lyrics off the top of my head. Not that I can remember them later either lol.

I kept quiet because I didn’t want to be made fun of for singing things “wrong”—which even my friends did without realizing it really hurt my confidence.

Instead I played flute in band, danced–all to routines, nothing I made up. Nothing really putting me on the spot.

If I sang it was in my car to Fiona Apple, or at home mimicking the sounds of my dads Irish music, or things in foreign languages (no one could correct me!).

My friend recorded over the music video. I didn’t blame her. I was embarassed.

For years I was too embarrassed to sing.

Several years ago I tried out for another Talent show and my voice crackled from the pressure. I still got the spot singing “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”

After I performed at least ten or fifteen people told me I did a good job.

But you know what? I didn’t feel on top of the world because of that.

The pay off was doing it for myself.

I have often been told I am brave or courageous to pour my heart out, to be honest about my life, my hurts, my pain.

There is bravery that is unhealthy and for a long time I used my bravery to ask a guy out who probably wasn’t good for me, or to go in for an interview for a job that wasn’t right, or to put myself out seeking praise or approval.

The kind of bravery I covet now is the kind where the real payoff is for my soul.

A while ago I wrote in Healing Blue Moon, how proud I was to actually record one of the songs I made up on the spot. It’s completely silly–but it felt realllly good.

The last post was my recent performance of “Reflections” from Mulan. This was really open for me because that’s my song, that is my story—being afraid to be myself full out.

Well this is how I became a singer, in addition to being a writer, an intuitive, a massage therapist (even though I have an ivy league degree). Because I decided the ultimate bravery is to do things that I wanted to do even if no one else cared.

That’s why I took singing lessons the past couple months.

And this week, I listened to an old intuitive reading. I was advised that I could do sound therapy “use your voice, use your flute. You don’t need a certification, the power to do it is inside of you.”

And so I did. I just opened my mouth and sang, used my visualization and channeling techniques to direct the energy at each chakra. Used my flute too. Added a crystal.

And bam. I could feel it an hour later like I had given my chakras a deep tissue massage.

At first I was scared to share with my intuitive development teacher. What if she didn’t feel anything? She loved it!

And so a sound healer is born. 

Unblock yo’self. You have no idea how important it is to give the world your gifts. 

If you need help, please know I am here.

I will be a vendor of my sound healing, massage and more in the Manifest Goddess Tent at KarmaFest this Saturday in Maryland.

Please share—have you been shy to sing? But do you sing when no one else is around?