Vibrating: NYC

I. AM. FREAKING. OUT!!

3 more sleeps until New York City!!

I'm dying! Nerves have made me jittery and anxious but so so excited!

I can't even tell you how happy I am that Jacki, Krystal and Gord will be there with me. For so many reasons. It's not very often that a girl gets to live out a dream with some of her best friends beside her. And by beside me I mean, keeping me from falling over and making sure there are kleenexs available at all times.

Is my talk ready? Well define "ready". It changes, daily, hourly, by the minute. I have so much I want to say. So much to tell the world. So much of myself I want to give. The encouragement I have been getting just makes me want to give more, do more, be better.

On top of all of that, there is talk about #140karaoke in NYC. Did you hear that? Probably not since it was me, unable to catch my breath. I've mentioned before my dream of singing to finance my mental health projects. Singing in NYC would just blow my mind... BLOW. MY. MIND. The experience would be stellar, killer, amazing... pretty much any word you can find in the thesaurus under "incredible".

This whole trip is going to be incredible.

I'm trying to figure out how to download my brain so I can have space to fill with all the new memories I'm going to make. Another reason I am so glad I'm going to have friends with me, to remind me of what the hell happened!

I'm not quite sure how I'm going to be able to thank Jeff Pulver and the 140 family for making this happen.

3 sleeps.

Well 3 nights, I don't know how much sleep I'm going to get.

The Fear of Opportunity

So my last post I talked about the amazing opportunity that #140conf is going to be for me. I am vibrating with excitement, fear, amazement and nerves. Getting to see and talk to Jeff this week was even more uplifting. Knowing what is coming in the future settled my brain a bit. Plus Jeff radiates magic and I can't help but learn from him and be in awe when he is around.

Now here is my fear.

I don't know what the hell I'm doing. For 8 months my life has been focused on 140 in NYC, now it's here and then what? What do I do next? This is supposed to be my big break but I don't know how to grab it. I don't know who to talk to, who to work with, who to grab by the arm and hold on to.

What do I do?

Like I've said, in a perfect world I would be singing. This would actually support my family and allow me to finance projects to help end the stigma of mental illness. But that's a perfect world. Right now I'm scared my life will never move beyond a minimum wage. That I won't be able to support my daughter like she deserves. That I won't be able to reach the people who need me to be their voice when they can't be. What if I have built this up so much in my head that I have made the pedestal too high.

The last few weeks my confidence has been super high. I know what I have to offer and I know that I can and will be an asset to this world. Right now though, I'm like a toddler. I see blocks, I see a tower, but I have no idea how to make those blocks into a tower. I am missing that crucial middle piece that tells me how to take the raw potential I have and turn it into something great.

How do I do it?

Do you know? Can you help me? What do I do at the starting line to get me to the finish?

I have seen miracles. I have worked hard. I am ready to be the person I dream of being. I just need to know how.

Ten Minutes (#140conf)

I wish I could just open up my brain and let you see whats going on inside of it. To try and put it on paper is proving to be a more difficult than I thought it would be.

I have so much going on right now.

I'm going to focus on the State Of Now (aka #140conf) conference in New York City coming up in less than 2 weeks. An amazing man who I have been lucky enough to become friends with over the past year, Jeff Pulver, invited me last September to speak at his conference in NYC. At the time I didn't know much about 140 or Jeff but I knew New York City and immediately said yes. Now? Well the more I learn about Jeff, the conference and my fellow speakers the more nervous I'm getting.

It's anxiety, but its good anxiety. It's nerves. This is the opportunity I have been waiting for. A global stage. A global stage in a room full of people who inspire, support, and amaze daily. I am lucky enough to be speaking with some of my dearest friends, Jacki Yovanoff, Heather Hamilton, Taylor Jones. And some people who inspire me greatly, Wes Prankard, Mark Horvath, and the man himself, Jeff Pulver. This certainly is helping with the nerves, knowing i'll be surrounded by friends. However knowing i'll also be surrounded by people such as Deepak Chopra, Carlos Delgado and other amazing people, sky rockets the nerves again. I know people are just people, but my god... Just... my god.

I have two major passions in my life. Educating and advocating for those living with mental health issues and in poverty and singing. My dream would be to sing as a career, make enough money and gain enough popularity to be able to make a viable impact on the stigmas surrounding mental illness and poverty. To be able to say to people, "I have a mental illness and I lived in poverty, but I never gave up dreaming. Now I'm living my dream and not hiding in the shadows". I would totally be happy doing just one or the other. I need a platform though. I need a mentor, a guide, a plan. I think #140conf is where I am finally going to be able to meet people to show me my path and influence how I continue to move through life.

But at the moment, my heart is in my throat. How in ten minutes do I explain to the world who I am. My failures, my successes, the miracles I have seen, felt and been a part of? That my world is full of beautiful, amazing, awe inspiring people. That I have been to rock bottom and been lifted back up from the bottom by people who I have never met or met through social media alone. That I've been able to provide things to my daughter that I would never have been able to provide alone. That I've been given strength and support I have only dreamed of. That even in my darkest days of mental illness, I have never felt completely alone.

Ten minutes to explain my history and reach out and grab a hold of my future.

Ten minutes.

JLo, Oprah and the $10 Tattoo

Fireworks. All I can say about this week is, Fireworks. It's been a beautiful, shocking, stunning week and it's only Tuesday!

~ Picture drawn by me today in art therapy

Anyone can read about yesterdays fantastic CAS news on my post yesterday, its all gone up from there. 

This morning I headed out to an appointment I made quite awhile ago for a tattoo when things were a bit better financially. I had a gift card that had been travelling around in my wallet and thought "Well, I may as well go and hope for the best. Worst that happens is I do the outline and no shading and go back". Turns out the best was great! Watching the clock the whole time, we got going and 45 minutes from walking in the door it was done. I actually didn't believe him. I was shocked. It was so fast! And Gord was amazing. Super light hand (anyone with tattoos knows how important that is). So... $10 later I had my newest tattoo. I love it. I can't wait to have my bird added to it! This is one of my favorite songs, as well as my motto for my anxiety. I just need to Let It Be.

While I'm sitting in the tattoo chair, I was checking my email and there it was. An email from the casting director for an unnamed documentary on the Oprah Winfrey Network asking me to be in Toronto tomorrow. Me. Oprah Network. Me. I was lucky enough to have met Andrea Syrtash, the host, at last weeks #140NYC conference meet-up in Toronto and she passed my info on to casting. The episode is about triumphs and failures (both of which I have many of lol). So in the morning i'll be off to shoot. HOLY CRAP!

Driving home on my tattoo/Oprah high I'm listening to our local radio radio station, about 30 seconds from my house they did a "ticket ambush". A ticket ambush is where you show up somewhere in town where the DJ is and they give you concert tickets. It happens that they were at their radio station about 4 minutes from my house. I figured, what the hell and off I went to the radio station to see if I could maybe get lucky, again. I did. I hit the station first and not only got to see my buddy Sylvan, I won 2 tickets to see JLo and Enrique Iglasias in Toronto. Again... HOLY CRAP! (I'm taking my friend Kinga who was more excited then me winning at me asking her to go. It was awesome :D)

Ok, so I've now gotten lucky 3 times in one day and thought half jokingly, I should buy a lotto ticket. Well I had to stop at the corner store anyway so I did buy a scratch ticket... and won $10! Uh hello? My luck just made my tattoo essentially free. 

Yes... I'm feeling stunned and amazed right now. And blessed, so so blessed.  Coming up I have the documentary shoot tomorrow, and events leading up to #140confNYC State Of Now conference, Latitudes festival, JLo concert and so much more. My friend Jacki said to me "it feels like it could be a shift" and I agree. I am going to grab these opportunities and hang on tight. I'm ready. 

All the work I've been doing myself, in therapy, in group... I am ready. There will still be days that my anxiety takes over. There will still be days when I'm depressed. Mental illness doesn't just go away because life gets better, but I will hold on to the feelings I'm having right now to try and keep myself grounded and moving forward. Perhaps now is my time. 

Now Is My Time.