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?

First public vocal performance in years. Many  thanks to my teacher Nancy Notargiacomo.

Read Healing Blue Moon 

Good Day Glorious Ones!

If you are looking to hang out with someone for Thank Goddess It’s Friday or the Weekend, then throw on this video of my friends Kris Oster and my new friend Nicky Tillyer.

We talked about:

the importance of creativity,

how it changed our lives,

what it means to be authentic and in business when you hate salsyness

and more stuff.

Check it:

Twenty-eight year old Jet, the former Mossad operative from the eponymous novel JET, must battle insurmountable odds to protect those she loves in a deadly race that stretches from the heartland of Nebraska to the corridors of power in Washington, D.C., from the lurid streets of Bangkok to the deadly jungles of Laos and Myanmar. Fans of Kill Bill, the Bourne trilogy, and 24 will be delighted by this roller-coaster of action, intrigue and suspense.

 

Another JET book by Russell Blake. This sequel to the first book* builds on the themes I have come to expect having read The Voynich Cypher by him as well. 

 

Lately, if I’m going to read a thriller, I’m going to read Russell Blake.

 

Here’s the skinny:

 

1.  It’s Blakian, alright.

 

All Present—International intrigue, shady political factions, black market rings, and kick ass ladies in a man’s world. 

 

2.  Starts off a bit slow.

 

The very first chapter of this book is out of the linear storytelling. Some guy is stumbling along in the woods.

 

I didn’t understand what was going on and I didn’t understand why it was so long.

 

But don’t give up the book–it’ll speed up fast. 

 

Surprisingly I thought this first chapter was the weakest point of the book. 

 

3. JET shows her softer side.

 

This book really shows JET open up. She’s an abuse survivor turned lethal killer turned freebird. Finally we see her truly open up with compassion, trust and love. 

 

I like this pattern because it speaks to modern women. We juggle the need to be strong with empathy and need for love.

 

 It’s complicated and that makes for a nice plot.

 

I dig it! Looking forward to the next.

Source: Victory of the People

I am grateful that my site is read at all. I used to have blogs that crawled in hits. I am always surprised to check the counter and see it hundreds higher.

I am grateful.

Thank you.