Empowered

I've neglected my blog pretty badly and figured I would pick it back up, more for my own sake and sort of journaling than anything else. If you're still reading, THANKS- feel free to comment/advise as you like. =) My life in LA is slowly coming together. I live in West Hollywood and, though the traffic and parking is RI. DI. U. LOUS. I do live in a nice neighborhood and my roommate is pretty much awesome. We get along great, although we have opposite schedules so I sometimes don't see her all week, but she's just easy to live with, very chill and a very cool person. I'm teaching for three studios now- Little Maestros, the School of Dance and Music and Join the Band. Each job has great things about it and I'm so blessed that things are working out financially. I also sold my condo recently, which was a tremendous blessing that enabled me to pay off some bills, get on my feet, and start recording an EP that will be released sometime this summer. (An EP is sort of like an album, just shorter.) I've continued meeting with the MasterMinds group- Tupua and I go together. We have meetings every Sunday, where we talk about our life/career goals and work with accountability partners throughout the week to stay on track. We usually do 8 week cycles- last cycle, I focused mostly on getting things going with my EP. The previous cycle, I was focused on finding work. This cycle, I'm focusing on health and losing weight, which is incredibly challenging for me. There are a lot of factors at play- some that are legit and some that are just excuses and bad habits I've formed, but it all snowballs to one big issue that's really hard for me to overcome. It's great to have their encouragement and support though, and we've all become friends as well, which is lovely to have since I'm new here. Lately, we've been reading Jack Canfield's "Success Principles" and, in the beginning, he talks about taking 100% responsibility for everything in your life. Man. That's a tough pill to swallow. I try to take responsibility for the things I do/say but this takes it to a whole new level. As I think about it and let go of my pride though, I can see how a lot of things that I felt weren't my fault actually are. I let someone treat me badly. I chose to take out student loans. I chose to move to LA. It's not that they're all bad decisions, but they were MINE to make and I am therefore responsible for the outcome. Once I got over the initial guilt of that realization, it was actually liberating because that means, if I'm responsible for the BAD things, I can DO something to change it and create GOOD things. I guess I've always understood this to some degree, but it's so clear now, and... it's empowering.