It’s been a long time since I last wrote at you and in that time, some have clamored for the next e-mail while I’m sure many others have forgotten that I still occupy space on this big rock we all call home. But not to be forgotten, because hey, it’s the age of instant self-promotion baby, I am back! Yet again! With exclamations galore!
So, when I last wrote you, it was mid-March and I had just returned from the Holy Land. It was good thing I did (in my opinion), because well, the Holy Land seems to have turned into the Hot-Zone Land in the meantime. So, let me first send my best wishes and prayers to those of you in that part of the world and hopefully my musings about myself will lighten the burden so to speak 
For me, much has happened since I last wrote. I would say the most exciting and pivotal and fundamental shift has been that of location. I am back in Los Angeles, North Hollywood to be exact, and I am oh so so so so so so so so happy here. The day I got back, my wonderful friend picked me up at the airport and I said to her, I have a feeling this is supposed to be a time of great light in my life. And it indeed it has been. First off, I don’t have a car. I had a car waiting for me (generously offered I might add) but I turned it down because I wanted to keep living like I was travelling. And to a great deal, I have succeeded. I walk almost everywhere–experience a great sense of community here in the NoHo Arts District, and have become the first white person to use the LA bus system. Also, just last week, I taught myself to ride a bike (yes I never learned as a kid). It took a lot of affirmations but only took me 5 minutes!! And boy can I just say, it’s a cool feeling, especially when you first experience it as an adult. Quite exhilirating.
I have been focused on dancing more than I ever have before. It’s really getting serious at this point. I have been really working on a lot of new styles of dance and am branching outside of popping and I love it. I am everyday discovering a whole new love for dance. This really happened because I finally admitted to myself and to others that I was scared of just “dancing.” It’s interesting when you get good at something how you can start to build an identity around it. As I got better at popping, it began to create an almost constricting feeling because I was good at this thing and thus had something to lose by trying other types of movement that I might not be as good at at first. Once I let this out and said basically, I’m scared of being bad at dancing, I was able to allow myself to be bad and start on the road of being good. Anyway, to make a long story longer, I am happily working on hip-hop, house, locking, wacking, salsa (all Latin really), rocking, and ballet at the moment. For those of you who don’t know what those dances are, I have just created the perfect opportunity for a segue, for this is what effective writers do–we create magical transitions that move the reader along from one thought to the next in a seamless, almost magical fashion.
If you are still reading, you obviously are enjoying yourself and I have you hooked, so I will continue at length. Otherwise, who needs you anyway? So, the segue I was referring to is that I am in the process of building something so that people will no longer have to be (or have an excuse to be) uneducated about dance, specifically streetdance. This is in progress, and I don’t like to talk too much about things in progress, as I still believe in jinxes and cooties, but let’s instead abstract.
Basically what has happened since I have moved back is that I have become, in the words of my roommate Tyson, empowered. I no longer feel a reason to complain about a single thing in my life. I feel completely in control of all aspects of my life (except introducing myself to women that I think are really really hot, but one step at a time you know) and this sense of power just feels like it is pervading everything, everything, everything.
I am in a performance group called Elastic Illusion and we have begun peforming and have released our first DVD and put up our website and myspace. The website is in 1.0 form and is almost a skeleton at the moment but as the days and weeks go by, the transformation will develop until it is full-fledged and awe-inspiring. This I guarantee. Also, within the week, there will be dance clips of me and the other members of the group performing so hopefully, that will keep you checking the site! The group is absolutely incredible and so talented and I can’t wait to watch it all develop and come together. And most importantly, for the first time, I feel like I am in a group where the members are as much friends and brothers and confidantes as just working partners. We all eat organic, talk conspiracy theory and God, and just dance all day everyday. It’s truly blessed and I am humbled and beyond grateful.
Now, for a less smooth segue. My roommate Tyson (also memeber of Elastic Illusion) and I have also begun street performing, which for those of you with interest and a good memory know is something I was very excited to begin doing when I got back to LA. It’s interesting because right before moving back, I actually cried twice about the prospect of doing this–my fear was so great. But it really has blossomed into something beautiful and every time I do it I enjoy more and more just messing with people. Just having fun with random strangers and interacting with people on the street. This has always been my greatest wish and greatest fear and to watch it happening is… well, almost unbelievable. It’s also a great study in human psychology how by putting on a costume and doing tricks for people, you are given license to be crazy. I have always wanted to just be crazy but have been concerned about institutions and legal proceedings. If you are in the same boat, my advice is to get a costume, because I promise, you’re all set if you do!
Now, to take a turn to the more serious, which is the area that I most enjoy. I really, internally, have become what a teacher of mine Caroline Myss calls a monk without a monastery. I really feel like all of these things I have just written are simply what I am being called to do and are the things I need to do for my own healing and to become a person capable of healing others. If after writing this, something is released and I am called to something else, PEACE OUT WORLD. The things that I have watched manifest in 4 months I would not have believed were possible in the past. As I have gone from timidly stepping to confidently stepping to leaping and jumping onto the path with complete faith and certainty, magic just keeps happening. And I realize it’s a law. Like in physics. Like it *IS* physics that scientists just haven’t fully proved yet. But they will. But until then, we call it “magic” and people read this and think I’m one of “those people.” Well, I am one of those people and I am happy to be it and I will wait for you on the other side patiently because I am simply calling a duck a duck.
I have fully realized that we are here to do what we want to do. The mind has an incredible capacity to create justifications, rationalizations, and reasons why we should be doing something we are less than completely joyful to be doing. But those reasons are hollow and if you just leap, you will see that what appeared to be a cliff was actually a bridge, Indiana Jones-style.
So I have leapt. I come from a place of being an extreme perfectionist and at this moment, I release it. I choose now quantity over quality and I am just going to let the energy flow and get things out there. I am willing to be criticized for any of the following: not being good enough, selling out, watering down, trying to make an easy buck, being wack, exploiting, being crazy, being stupid, or anything else you can think of. CUZ I JUST DON’T CARE ANYMORE (look back on the monk without a monastery part to see why). Upon releasing this, I have watched my energy quadruple, my output multiply by tenfold, my capacity for ideas go through the roof, etc etc etc. I know this might sound like the ramblings of someone on the verge of a breakdown, but this is the current velocity of a process that has been accelerating for 2 or 3 years now. And finally I am willing to just say it unapologetically.
We create our reality. If you are anything less than completely happy with what you’ve created, CONGRATULATIONS!
And now I will start a new chapter of Brit’s lil ole newsletter, the recommendation section. This is things that I have loved that I have taken in since I last saw you:
Books:
-The Long Tail by Chris Anderson ****#1 book recommendation****
-Be Here Now by Ram Dass
-Ask and It Is Given by Abraham
-Building a Company by Paul Hawken
-The E-Myth by Michael Gerber
CDs:
-All of Jack Johnson’s CDs
-Citizen Cope CD ***#1 CD recommendation****
-Pigeon John CD-Pigeon John Sings the Blues
-Mason Jennings “Use Your Voice”
Movies:
-Thank You For Smoking
-Waking Life
-What the Bleep Do We Know (the more you watch it, the better it gets)
-Waiting (hilarious)
Processes:
This is really what I do with everything now–every idea I have, but I started by just doing it with my life. I will explain it to you in detail because I think it is the magical key that unlocks the universe. I feel like we are in a virtual reality (coff.. string theory.. coff) and that this process makes the reality more what we want it to be as opposed to just happening to us like a dream does. It goes like this:
First, you have to WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN. For whatever reason, writing is the only way to make it work. Don’t ask me why, but skip this part at your own peril.
The first step is to write down your end-of-life goals. Your life purpose so to speak. Mine has very little to do with “make 10 million dollars” or “climb Mount Everest” and has much more to do with “be a person who spreads love” and things like this. So don’t think you have to do this in any specific way. But start there.
Then, working backwards, write down your goals for 10 years, 5 years, 2 years, 1 year, 6 months, 3 months, and 1 month. I think working backwards is better for most people because it’s a step of refining. How do I get to where I want to be when I die in 10 years? How do I get to where I want to be in 10 years in the next 5, etc etc etc.
That’s it. I don’t think you even have to read the goals (I personally read mine at least once a week). It’s really the process of doing it that counts.
———–
So that’s that!
I hope it is half as much to read as it was to write.
LOVE YOU ALL ALWAYS AND FOREVER!
lil’ ‘ole me
P.S.
I think a lot of this empowerment was unconsciously spurred by the fact that my main dance teacher passed away in a rather tragic way in May. I was in a certain way unaffected by this. I know reincarnation to be a fact and I feel him there every time I even think of him (like right now) and we didn’t have much of a day-to-day relationship so that aspect wasn’t difficult for me. But in another way, to watch someone who I learned so much from and who taught me so much just disappear like THAT *snaps fingers*, I think served as a catalyst in some ways to just F’ING DO IT. Stop wondering and stop waiting and just go for it. Because this is what he always told me and this is what he always did. I wrote a eulogy about him which you can read here (scroll down). You can also watch clips of him dancing at the same link. He was a special one and left quite the legacy.
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