What I learned from Cuz Wendy and Marie Kondo

Part 2

Open houses on Saturdays and showings during the week and sometimes on Sundays, that was my life. My schedule was dictated by the showings. I had to literally work and schedule things around this huge endeavor.

Several people have told me that selling a house is one of the most stressful and biggest things one can undertake. I mentally paused. Indeed, our home is our safe haven. It’s literally our foundation, where about half our lives is spent, as our beds cocoon us every night and let our bodies recover from the day. 

If we were trees, our home is equivalent to the roots. Home is linked to the root chakra: where we feel safe and provided for, where our bodily needs are met - eating, sleeping, loving. Home should be a place of security, comfort and familiarity, where we nest, grow and live. It’s the floor beneath our feet, holding the bed when we are sick and sometimes our final resting place. They say home is where the heart is, and that is literally where your heart is half of the time.

When I was talking to my cousin Wendy, who coincidentally is going to be listing her house soon, she commented how this house had been good to me and asked me if I had thanked my house. I was silent for a few seconds, thinking about this. I did Reiki on my house to clear the energies. I anointed the air by diffusing pure essential oils (these are the ones I use). I cleaned, vacuumed, dusted every surface. I painted it, I improved it, I fixed it. I had poured much love into this house, but no, I had not actually thanked “her.” The word for house in Portuguese is feminine, so I am calling my house “her.”

I had to thank her. So, I did. I thanked her for being my home. I had found her in disarray almost 10 years before. I had given her quite a makeover, with many improvements over the years, and I acknowledged that more still needed to be done. I told her that the next people who live here would hopefully continue that task, and that she would be the haven that she had been to me for another family. It felt good to thank her and it reminded me of Marie Kondo, when she helps people tidy up their house on Netflix, the first thing she does is “feel” the spirit of the home. She kneels, closes her eyes, and mentally and spiritually connects with the house, greeting it and offering her respect for it. In a way, even though I did not kneel when I thanked my house, I was connecting mentally and spiritually with it, and thanking “her.”

It was not under my control when the right buyer would come along or when I would be moving. Our plan was to explore a new area and start a new chapter elsewhere, but first things first. Just like Julie said, there is a step for everything in this process, and my other half said: “Patience, dear.” If only I could muster some of that! I had to: my life depended on it.

What I learned from cuz Wendy and Marie Kondo

Part 1

I have never sold a house. I had been a renter prior to buying my first house, this house. I didn’t really have any expectations of the whole process, but I knew it was going to be a learning experience. In my mind, I had set a date to go to market: October 1^st.

I started sorting through my stuff in August. I contacted three realtors I knew, to come up with market analyses. I ended up choosing my friend Julie Etter, a top selling realtor in her company. She came to my house with a stager. I was petrified of the word “stager” to begin with. And this one meant business. She would float in and out of the rooms with her notepad, silent, but writing, making comments if I uttered anything. The more she navigated through my overstuffed house, the more uncomfortable I became. This heavy feeling doomed over my head, and I trembled at the outcome.

At the end, she handed me two pages of handwritten notes, room by room, task by task. I almost fainted. My eyes homed in on the most complex of projects: she wanted me to finish one of the rooms in the basement. It had been my intention to do that for the past 7 years, but between the aftermath of a flood, and using my basement as storage for 3 adults, I never got to it.

What I needed to do, in between sorting, decluttering, donating, trashing and packing, was buy trim for doors, windows and closets, cut it at a 45˚ angle by hand – I wasn’t planning on purchasing an electric saw before moving, buy and install new ceiling tiles, paint, install baseboard. The project seemed daunting and I didn’t want to spend too much money so we decided to do it ourselves.

During breaks, I would sort, trash, donate, pack. That seemed to be my life and by the time October 1^st rolled around, I had already warned Julie I wasn’t ready to list the house. Not only did I have a ton more to pack, but I hadn’t crossed off enough stuff on the stager’s list.

That list was going to be the death of me. I am one of those people who might not be the most organized person in the world, but if you put a list in front of me, I become obsessed with it. And tackling the hardest project on the list had to be number 1. My other half and I work well as a team, and we took turns sawing wood (which I do not recommend, as you may get red callouses if your hands are manicured).

So, two months later, I had not only finished the list, but also freshly painted my bedroom, my dining room, the entry way and part of the kitchen. Julie came over and so did her photographer, a young woman who went throughout the house and clicked away without a peep. After sitting down with Julie and discussing how I would be gone for half of December, we decided to wait one more month until January 2^nd.

Ominous date indeed, as it was our anniversary. It had to bode well. So right before I left for the holidays, I also decided to paint my second kitchen in the in-law, as that had been the last thing I had set out to do. The list had not included painting rooms, with the exception of the finished room in the basement.

The overachiever in me had to do it so I could feel a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, knowing that it was the best I could do for the next owners.

On January 2^nd, Julie came over and showed me the listing preview. Later that day, the listing was live. It is a strange sensation to have the inside of your house on display for everyone to see. This is what house hunting is: you judge the house by the photos, then you go see it.

I knew I would have to clean a lot more often (it seemed like every single day) and I knew I would have to remove my two cats from the house, hide their litter boxes in the basement, leave all the lights on.

The first time was the first open house on the first Saturday of the year. I frantically rushed to see if everything was perfect: all the lights on, my diffusers running throughout the house (more later on which essential oils I used) and Julie arrived twenty minutes earlier as I flew out with the two cat carriers in hand. The poor babies were facing each other in the backseat of my car. My 12-year old meowed: the scared kind of cry. In total, I was away for about 2 hours. I had booked a manicure, so I could get my mind off of what was happening at my house. But the stress didn’t leave me. I got back to the car and still killed some time. I felt guilty about subjecting my pets to this, but this was all part of the process. I wondered what came next.

This is a perfect blend for an open house or showing.
Citrus oils both uplift and calm, aside from smelling clean and fresh, and I thought it was a great choice.

Are you in Love?

Is there a difference between loving someone and being in love? Can you have both?

I think this is very personal for people, and my experience and opinions have dramatically changed over time. I am specifically talking about romantic love here.

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine and I asked her:

"What does love mean to you? What does being in love mean to you?"

She did a great job explaining them both to me, then she pointed out she wasn't sure, because she had never had good examples of loving relationships growing up, and that maybe that was why she felt she didn't really know what love was.

I think if we dig deep in us, despite our experiences of love or lack thereof - in other words, regardless if you have had good examples of love personified when you were growing up, love is something within us. You love within first perhaps.

Falling in love is what many call the Honeymoon Period or Phase. All my life and throughout all my relationships, I have felt that the Honeymoon Phase dwindles. I equate it to the initial spark when you light up a match, it's when the flame is bigger and almost explosive, when it goes from nothing to everything. And that loving someone is that steady flame after the inital spark.

Being in love is all those sensations: the butterflies, the excitement, the mesmerizing feeling of that person being perfect, the giggling part of love.

Loving someone is wanting the best for them, despite their flaws and challenges. Recognizing that the good surpasses the bad and that you still choose that person now, every day, every moment, even if they drive you crazy. It's the realization that even if the years go by and even if the intimacy of physical pleasure subsides, that you still want that person by your side as your companion, so you can laugh and cry together.

Now, are there couples who love each other and whose Honeymoon Phase has never expired? Yes. I know very few, and I think it is a rarity. It is refreshing to see two people look into each other's eyes and to the outsider, you still see the spark, the awe and that longing of being in love with someone, but you also recognize that they have built a life together and that they have supported each other through good and bad times.

If you have the duo of loving someone and being in love with them in your current relationship, then you are one of the lucky ones.

I never thought it was possible until it happened to me, and it took 41 years to find. I don't know why and what makes it so. I think there is a synchronicity that happens, maybe by the hands of the Universe - a little magic.

I wish you find that magic, first within you. Then, perhaps the glittering dust of love will sprinkle around you, either with a new person or your current one. Every day that passes, you fall in love more and more with that person. Pure magic...

Spring Cleaning and the Law of Attraction

I was cleaning my bedroom today. My spring cleaning is always a gruesome process. I tend to hold onto things, and never want to let go. I could go on and dive into a very deep analysis of this fact, but I will spare you.

I actually threw a lot of things away: old receipts, plane tickets and boarding passes, old toxic lotions - toxic from their synthetic fragrance and other harmful chemicals and from rancidity, old makeup, etc.

I decided to pack up some books I have already read to either donate or for a potential yard sale. In the midst, I found some of my writing. Not the creative kind, but the wishful kind. I’ll explain what I mean.

The first one was a couple of loose pages dated from 2015 written in the first person about my ideal life partner. They were in the present tense and made me smile as I read them. The second one was very similar, but undated, and the words extended through small pages of a small bound notebook, secured with an elastic band. These words were not all written in the same instance, but they were in letter form to my perfect match. I smiled again, because they were very similar to the 2015 account of my ideal reality with my ideal person. These two accounts are examples of using writing as a manifestation tool. Manifesting something you want in your life doesn’t happen overnight, but the seeds are planted, and as I wrote along the same lines, it was like I was watering this dream of finding this perfect life partner.

Let’s be honest: I am not delusional about perfection, but when I wrote this, I knew that I had to not only be specific in what I wanted, but I also needed to write about how having this person in my life made me feel. I also knew that people are human and that my knight in shining armor might not be perfect. Hell, I am not perfect. But I wished for someone perfect for me.

Ask and you shall receive, and I did, about a year and a half later. I feel blessed and lucky that the Universe responded.

As I was going through my vanity, I found some old wallets. Some in great shape, and I said out loud: “I would really love to find some money in these.” These wallets were leather and nice, and even though some looked worn, I even found a Burberry wallet that had been a gift. It is a rare thing that I find any cash, besides coins in old wallets, and as predicted, I found some coins, including some old French francs, coins and a 50 Franc bill. I thought it was cool, but not what I was hoping for.

Then, within the mounds of old Air France, British Airways and Continental Airlines boarding passes and ticket receipts, I found an envelope with my Mom’s handwriting, which said “to get something for the new house.” I had been in this house for 9 years. I opened the envelope and found three crisp $100 bills. I thanked up above and knew this was a day where manifestation was real, where my wishes went from words, written and spoken, and came to life, as if a divine lightning bolt had struck the life force energy straight into my reality. Thank you!

My $300 find

Perspective, Balance and Signs

This morning, I was thinking about perspective. Only in the past couple of years have I started watching and reading the news. Before that, I was perfectly content living in my purple (prefer it to pink) colored reality of being isolated from "news." I was always the last person to find out about things, and when someone would ask me "did you hear about X, Y and Z?" I would proudly say "nope."

Knowledge can create a prison of sorts, but so can ignorance. Ignorance is more apt for children in the sense of lack of responsibility: I believe kids should be kids for as long as they can, because once adulthood knocks at your door, responsibility creeps in. With knowledge comes responsibility. Knowledge can create a prison, because knowledge is never absolute. It's always in motion. But sometimes, one can think it's absolute power. However, you can always learn more and when you become privy to new information, you can change your mind about how you feel about something. The news addiction isn't healthy, because sometimes, it's not presented factually, but already through some prism of opinion and it just seems to be beaten to death at times, and I feel like saying ENOUGH! So, give yourself permission to disconnect from social media, TV, phone, etc. Give yourself permission to connect within, find you truth inside, connect with what feels nice in yourself. Embrace that little piece of you that is kid-like in the sense of obliviousness and innocence on how to view the world.

Balance is a work in progress. Our body gives us so many signs of when it is out of balance, whether it is a headache, a stomach ache, a deep sense of sadness or anger. Stress is a sign to pay attention. We need to focus on what our body is trying to tell us through physical sensations and symptoms, emotions and thoughts. Our immune systems are compromised for so many reasons and when we are presented with clear signs of imbalance, we should pay attention.

Center yourself and use tools that help promote that balance, like essential oils, reiki, meditation, calling a friend and vent. Whatever feels good to you. Have a wonderful day! 

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Fake News and Rare Essential Oils

The term Fake News can be read everywhere on the internet. It's basically false information, and these days a term you hear a lot!

As I browsed my Facebook feed this morning, I came across an article that announced that Former First Lady Barbara Bush had passed away at age 92. The thread of comments showcased people's sentiments and condolences.

I remember reading yesterday about her failing health and that she was at home with family, so I googled the news. Nothing. Not CNN. Not Fox. Nowhere.
Then, I read a comment that said "Fake News." Here we go...

I commented on the thread, because I was almost insulted for Mrs. Bush's fake demise. Just because someone is dying doesn't mean they are dead. I was secretly glad she was still alive, even though I am not sure if that is a good or bad thing for her or the family. I don't know.
Even something so personal - putting aside from what political views you may have - doesn't seem to be off limits to the Fake News bandwagon, and that really made me sad for how things are being reported these days, alongside the lack of courtesy and respect.
The post has since been deleted, out of respect, hopefully.* 

I have been watching a 5-part documentary series on the Kennedy family, and one of the things I took from it is the enormous burden First Ladies have, including our present one.
First Ladies are a rarity. Most women do not become First Ladies.  They are indeed rare.

This rarity concept was making my brain churn and I decided to dig into my essential oils stash and look for oils that are not available anymore.

Last year, doTERRA launched a Mother's Day Trio special of 5 ml oils: Kumquat, Red Mandarin and Sunny Citrus Blend.

I grabbed the Kumquat and splurged, putting 3 drops into my diffuser together with 1 drop of Blue Tansy, an expensive oil that was launched last year. The combination was something magical, and I felt that rarity concept manifest into my lungs.

This morning, I had gone into my account and gotten 2 Mother's Day collections (maximum 2 per account, you see), because these two will become rare oils, and I have no idea when they will be sold out. The Harmony Collection boasts Green Mandarin (can be used as a food preservative and good for the immune system!), Pink Pepper (I have always loved pink pepper for so many reasons, but calming and immune support make perfect sense) and Star Anise (digestion support and grounding), so I am really excited that these 3 will come with a booklet of 30 recipes and also to make perfume! What better gift than that! So I cannot wait for these to come in the mail.

If you want to obtain the Harmony trio retail, click here.
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*That evening, we got the news that the Former First Lady Barbara Bush did pass away.

Videomarketing and diffusing

This past week, I went to a networking meeting dinner at the Women's Success Network, a non-profit I belong to since 2004. We meet on the first Wednesday of the month, and it's a place where you learn, network and socialize. Last Wednesday, the presenter was a former news broadcaster who now owns her own business and teaches people how to do video marketing for their business.
Through her presentation, I learned a few things. When I have done videos on essential oils education, I have used a tripod and I kept on recording, because I didn't think it came out perfectly.

My other half had noticed in my videos that it didn't seem like I was looking at the camera directly, and through this woman's presentation, I realized that I was using the selfie mode and looking at the image instead of the camera lens itself, so this weekend, I did a couple of videos and managed to directly speak to the camera, just like on TV. Check it out here.

Now, editing the darned videos is truly a pain. I had to download two different apps to be able to cut some stuff and insert text at the end of the clips. I am still working on it.

My videos were about diffusing essential oils, which is the easiest way for someone to start using these precious gifts of the Earth. I sometimes forget that I, too, was once a newbie and had no idea what I was doing. And then I decided to do one in Portuguese too!

Sometimes, I wonder what my brain is doing, as it is spread out in so many directions. My cranial network fires at will!
There are so many pots on the stove and I don't want to overcook anything. I bet there are a lot of people out there feeling the same.