My Spiritual Awakening Part Two: #SummerOfJackie

Everything is better and brighter in the summer...

I left off in part one with my business going down the drain alongside COVID and having a “what do I do” conversation with God, in which God responded, “whatever you want”.

There was also a lot more conversation in that meditation. I didn’t just surrender to “do what ever you want” and “you’re here to share your voice”.

God also reminded me how everything has always worked out for my benefit ~ even when it didn’t seem it was leaning in my favor at the time.

There was a montage of me devastatingly reacting to a series of my life’s disappointments (my boyfriend in 2010 cheating on me and then getting the girl knocked up a month or two later, for example).

And then a montage that showed how those things were actually the greatest things for me. (I am SO GLAD it didn’t work out with him and actually now pity that woman I once hated).

Trusting God was easy with all this hindsight and perspective!

But, what about income? Doing whatever I wanted seemed silly in a world where I had no income and global lockdowns were restricting us from actually going anywhere.

More so than watching my business disappear into thin air ~ I was also frustrated with myself for putting all of my eggs into one basket (something I’d advised clients not to do for YEARS).

Before taking advantage of the online travel boom ~ I was a small business consultant. That work is what brought me down to Miami in the first place, before I left to see the world.

I knew I would be getting back into consulting of some sort. And if we’re being totally honest I had already been considering how to shift back into consulting ~ it was part of the reason I had planned 2020 to include some time off in the summer.

I hadn’t really been resonating with the online travel work since around 2018 with the ‘age of the influencer’. My contracts started requesting that I be in the photos I was delivering for them. I was a photographer, not a model. And I really didn’t like performing for my paycheck. But the travel perks are so good, I told myself.

I started to marinate (read: ruminate) on what I would need to do to find clients. “How am I going to make money?”

Around the same time a friend of mine started posting her daily gratitude to instagram stories and it inspired me to start each morning with a gratitude practice before jumping into my phone. (As a sidetone: I swear that going into the phone before you properly wake up causes some sort of a psychosis.)

I wouldn’t say I was a negative person before all of this. But I wasn’t a positive one, either. I’m a Capricorn sun with a Scorpio rising (and a Scorpio stellium in the 1st house ~ for those who speak astrology). Essentially, I was a realist.

This simple, humble gratitude practice started to shift my perspectives and would go on to truly change my life. You know what they say, change your thoughts ~ change your world.

In a world where death tolls were being reported and displayed on tv like a football score ~ I started to see hope and optimism.

I know it might seem elementary but gratitude really has such a powerful energy behind it. I’ve raved about gratitude on my YouTube channel, if you’re interested in digging further into that.

The gratitude definitely assisted with the ruminating and just as they say it happens, I chose to surrender to God’s will and God provided.

About two weeks after my meditation a friend called me asking if I would assist her with her business. She was a fashion/lifestyle influencer and those girls were cleaning up during COVID. Although she had about 10x the following I had ~ she didn’t have the business sense that I did and the rates I was securing for my contracts were way higher than hers.

I stepped in as her “talent manager” and started negotiating for her (for a 20% cut of whatever I was bringing in, of course).

This work was easy for me, I was really good at it, and I was getting paid.

In a matter of weeks I was earning more with her than I had been planning to earn prior to COVID. And the time investment was minimal. I was working maybe 10 hours a week, making a decent six figures.

And then, as God instructed, I did whatever I wanted.

I had never had so much free time! And everything was still closed (this was about mid-May) so I was like a kid in a candy store re-discovering all of the things I loved to do (and having the funds to do it all).

I spent hours and hours of my day before tuning into my phone. My screen time was like 30 minutes a day, if even.

I got a hammock chair (I loved swings as a kid).

I had a stack of fiction novels to dig into (I was a proper book worm until I was a too cool for anything teen).

I planted a garden (gardening with my mom as a kid was one of my favorite things).

I inadvertently adopted a family of local squirrels when I started feeding them nuts to keep them from eating my tomatoes. Which works, btw, but it also trains them to be reliant on you for food (hence, the adoption).

I also started getting friendly little visitors and messengers. I started to feel more connected to nature and the world around me.

When the shops and such reopened I commenced my weekly manicure routine ~ and began really having fun with the colors I played with on my nails.

I got an aesthetic inflatable pool (if you sit in a float in a small pool and close your eyes, you’d never know you were in a small pool!).

If I wasn’t in my pool ~ I went to my neighborhoods private little beach.

I had always enjoyed cooking but, like, one meal a week. While I was in my bubble I created a little habit of not only cooking for myself ~ but cooking healthier for myself (using a lot of the organic produce I was growing in my garden). I also began to enjoy making my food look pretty. I had been really used to eating delicious and beautiful meals while traveling. I realized I didn’t need to go anywhere to eat food that was plated prettily ~ I just needed to learn how to do it myself.

I started painting again (something I had only done for the first time when I lived in Miami, but really loved!).

I was going for walks around the neighborhood to watch the sunset nearly everyday.

I had a friend sending me care packages of the finest sativa herb from California (at the time recreational weed was still illegal in New York and sativa was hard to come by). For those who don’t speak “weed” sativa is more of a mental, creative high where indica is a heavier, sleepy full body high.

I had another friend send me a care package of the finest (trippy) mushrooms from Colorado (this still isn’t legal in New York). Looking back: January of 2020 was actually the first time I had ever tried a psychedelic. I had been pretty afraid of them prior because of all the shit that had been buried in my past. But, as I mentioned in part one, I had been in spiritual circles for about a decade. All I was doing in those circles was digging into my past traumas and the like. I wasn’t afraid of it anymore. And I quite enjoyed the high.

I was outside, in my pool or in my chair, painting, reading, smoking, microdosing (okay, max-dosing a few times).

I cultivated a cozy, wonderful energy for myself and my home and nothing could penetrate it. This is how this space became known as “the bubble”. It was my bubble of joy, creativity, connection, the sun, and just overall good space.

I aptly titled this wonderful summer of inner child fulfillment, re-discovering things I loved and discovering new things I loved: #SummerOfJackie.

Sidenote: you can also tune into instagram and search the hashtag #SummerOfJackie to see some of my favorite posts from that time.

As the days began getting shorter and my tan started to fade: I started to feel like I was missing something. As much as I enjoyed my time rediscovering myself in my bubble ~ I realized it had been over a year since I had been intimate with a man. While I loved loving on myself ~ I was ready to share the love and began craving the touch of a man… And at that time I always gave into my cravings.