Grow Love in Your Garden Today

January 11, 2013 by My Experiments with Sanity

These days, I think about you, my fellow blogvillians. I think I mentioned it before, about how I don’t have to be accountable to many. But now that I’ve met you, I feel more accountable. My therapist the past few months has been an intern. Interns rock because they have all this hope and belief that there just may be a chance for you to escape insanity.

They have fun things like sand boxes and hand you print outs of stuff you said you were interested in. The lady before my current therapist retired. I think I may have sent her there…just kidding.

But that being said, she wasn’t really all in the game. So, as my new therapist said the other day, I became my own therapist. I was showing her the Dapper Manual and Dapper Inspiration books.

Dapper Soldiers, please start a Dapper Inspiration book yesterday. A Dapper Inspiration book is a notebook, or pieces of paper if you don’t have a notebook. You cut out images, articles, quotes that move you and glue, tape, staple…adhere to said paper. Then, overtime you’ve amassed this reference book, tailored just for YOU!

I bought a hefty stack of Oprah magazines from the thrift store for $0.25 each. Great magazine for positive quotes and inspiration.

It’s not all chick stuff either, guys. Inspiration and introspection is not just a female role but a male’s as well. Some local native cultures believe that the man has to develop the female side, as the female must develop the male. Yin yang basically. We should have a good balance to be the most successful in life.

I now have, honestly, 4 Dapper Inspiration books. They’re categorized, of course. Stuff on camping here, sustainability here, self-betterment here. When I find new things to add to the area, sometimes I go thru said category and cover up the info/thing I have already obtained. There’s always a parking space, in the books and in the world.

That’s the beauty of it. You’re mind can’t distinguish between if something is real or not, it only knows emotions. And lucky for us, we’ve got some powerful emotions.

Try this. Shut your eyes. Ok, wait, that won’t work. When you finish reading this, close you’re eyes. Lift your lips up into a slight, Mona Lisa-esque smile. Sit up straight. Take ten of those deep breaths that woosh air into every nook and cranny of you’re shell. And begin to see what it is you are currently in need/desire of.

But see it all the way thru. Is it a nice piece of fruit? A strawberry just perfectly ripe? Taste it then. Feel the sensations. Be totally there, eating that perfectly plump juicy ripe berry. I miss strawberries.

But for you, maybe it’s a car, a lover, a trillion dollars or ten dollars. Whatever it may be, do some dapper dreaming and experience that which you seek in all of its fullest and deepest dimensions. And build your dapper inspiration manual, yesterday.

Until we meet again, my dear Blogvillians,

B. Wright

May the Dapper Force Be with You

January 7, 2013 by My Experiments with Sanity

I just want to start off by saying how blown away I am that people from all over the world are reading this. I mean, I get it’s called the world wide web, I guess I just forget. How magical the power we have, all united? I feel like there’s so much we can achieve together.

You know, our bodies are just a shell. Inside of you is this thing called your soul. Some people don’t even know it’s there! But if you sit real still you can dial in and connect your soul to the ever abundant energy forces all around us. Energy radiates up out of the earth into our bodies and it shines down on us from up in the heavens above. We’re hit from the sides by our fellow travelers and foliage. We’re blanketed with energy, yet we forgot. It’s ok. But now we remember.

We don’t need to suck energy from other people. We don’t need to suck energy from excessive caffeine. We have all the energy we need already, of course!

Now that you’re dialed in, know that others around the globe, including myself, will use that line. We can connect, leave our bodies behind for a little while, and come play in the sky. Soar, skip and dip through your world, unfettered by your cumbersome body. It’s one of my favorite things to do, to leave my body behind and soar. This is new to me. I only just started. And I always forget. Let’s make a pledge to do it more often. You can do it too…of course.

How light we are! Just energy pulsing around! Zipping and dipping, buzzing and…fuzzing? So all of you glorious fine souls pulsing the same love energy that we are all made of, come join me. I’ve been lonely in Booniesville. I’m going to host a soiree.

Please do attend. You know where I live. You know everything. I’m hosting a gathering of all those walking the path towards dapperdom. Noon MST, this Sunday. No need to bring anything but your soul, we have everything we need…of course!

Oh how fabulous it will be! To unwind our limbs that have curled in the wrong direction, line our energy up and be all dapper and shit. Realize that when we join our souls like this, we are a force in the universe.

A force for dapperdom. As our energy pulses stronger and stronger with the deeper ties we make along this path toward dapperdom, our energy begins to radiate out, blind siding and beaming onto unsuspecting souls that are near us. When these sad souls see the joy and bliss we radiate out and damn, just how dapper we look all the way thru to our core! Why, those poor souls will rise up, inspired by our delight with life and they too will grow our force even stronger by following our path. Diesel. We’re a diesel force for dapperdom.

I’m not going to say walking this path is easy. Shit no. It takes concerted effort with every single breath you take! Let a few breaths pass and your mind has already run to the past or the future. It’s not here, Now. Back to the breaths. Back to the Now. Back to the breaths. Back to the Now.

It really is quite a lot of work to be present minded, and of course, dapperdom requires one to be fully present minded and linked in to the energy around one and if need be, takes in energy, but NEVER from another person, lest it be positive and given to us. One can use the soles of one’s feet to draw energy up and through one and out the heart chakra. Drop a love bomb on the room. It’s a lot of fun to watch it explode amongst the recipients and the rush when the force is united. The love, the connection that is felt. Until the next breath.

May the Dapper Force always have your back,

B. Wright

PS: I just googled “love bomb” to find a nice picture of a heart as a bomb, or some shit, and I guess it’s a cult thing. Love bomb is how you lure members into your cult. Shit, my gig is up. I was aiming towards world domination, wooohahahah!! But on a serious note, I think we should steal the word back and make “Love Bomb” a positive thing…damn cults, fucking everything up, as usual.

Lockdown has been Instituted on my Wallet

January 6, 2013 by My Experiments with Sanity

I’ve run out of pot. That doesn’t actually mean I’m not still smoking. Who knew you can get a hit from the other orifices of a bowl? I never thought about it, and it’s what I’ll do today. Then crawl around and look for some scrapplings. Then scrape some and smoke that. How else do you stop smoking? And then. And then it’s the tell tale time. Do I call the dealer? Or do I go and meditate? Go create art? Go and do something dapper?

I’ve also instituted a spending lockdown. I fired one crazy client and unexpectedly lost another client in the same month. Then the holidays came, I didn’t pursue work so aggressively. I got a new client recently, he called me! How cool is that that people call you to work for them? Sorry, that may be the norm to you but I’m used to being a useless dust speck, contributing nada to the world. I should be able to send out some invoices in a couple weeks.

But for now? I’m on lockdown. Spending lockdown. I want some cereal, but I’m being too lazy to bake my granola. Now I’m Ms. Fancy Pants, baking and shit! Well, I guess I would be if I actually did make it, and not just push around the carton of oats I left out as a reminder.

Now I feel accountable, to Blogville, to you guys. Honestly, I’m not really held accountable too much. I live alone with my dog, I work from home mostly, I have clients, not bosses. My family is thousands of miles away, for a reason. It’s hard working the dapper program alone. And that’s why I’m so grateful to be a card carrying member of Blogville. Seriously. Check my wallet. Proud resident Blogvillian, I yam!

I pledge a spending lockdown in honor of being Dapper and being the best I can, owing nothing to Mr. Visa and Mrs. Mastercard, and having paid off the ridiculously expensive piece of paper framed in the office. Lockdown. For 30 days. I’ll have to confess here if I broke down and bought a coffee or any other gaping hole I have in my budget.

Who’s down? We could lockdown together! Who doesn’t need a lockdown post holidays? I’ll start today, even though I haven’t bought anything over the past 4 days. So till 2/3/13. I think that’s 30 days.

I’m already tired of this leftover mashed potato hash thing I made. I may or may not have eaten it for the past couple days. I kind of don’t have much by way of groceries, since I knew I was leaving for 8 days and now I’ve been home a few days. But there’s still food. I share this because I may break down and buy some food. Point being food, not the grocery store. The way I shop, my buggy always looks like I feed an army at home. Such great intentions. And then I just push the healthy stuff around to get to my whipped cream cheese frosting and it all gets gross and moldy.

Such a waste, I know. I’m working on it. I am. So if you’re down to lockdown with me, comment below. We can rally each other on and cheer loudly when you were able to step out of line for that coffee and get back going wherever your going.

I do this every couple months, after a spending spree. I reevaluate the damage I did, return what I can return, accept what I can’t. Then lay out the numbers on the dry erase and start chugging away. I call it the Abundance Paradigm, not the get out of debt paradigm. Abundance. Have to think Abundance.

Happy Lockdown! Mazel Tov! Lock, Lock, lock…lockdown is ON…

B. Wright

Magic of Music when Emotions run Deep

January 6, 2013 by My Experiments with Sanity

I’ve recently realized I could play my CD’s on the DVD player. I mean, I knew you could do that, I just didn’t think to do it. I remember my first little tape player. That gives up your generation, I guess, by what you grew up with. Martika, “Toy Soldier” was my straight up jam.

I got a little red tape deck for Christmas or my birthday when I was young. Over the years, for Christmas or my birthday I got pieces to a pretty nice stereo system. I even had a CD burner when they first came out. Not that I support that now. The Artist worked hard, I get it. I want to be an Artist when I grow up. It’s disrespectful to burn.

But back then, back when I just didn’t give a shit, I burnt a ridiculous amount of CDs. I’d go to the library and rent CDs and burn ‘em. I’d borrow friends CD books and burn ‘em. I amassed a collection. No real idea how many. They live in 2 giant cases that when I haul around I focus on my muscles being used. That’s what you should do when working out, and that’s what moving them is like to me. I was a DJ at a community college radio station for a little over a year. I loved it. Picking music for people to enjoy? Awesome, right?

A few years back I was dating this guy all my friends knew as FEB. My Future Ex Boyfriend. I just kept him around because the sex was good enough and he did, and probably still does, well for himself. I have expensive taste and there were just so many good restaurants in town! He bought me an iPod for Christmas. It couldn’t come close to holding the amount of music I have, but I put on, 5 years ago, a portion of my CDs. Been listening to it ever since.

I’ve moved a lot over the years. The stereo was disassembled slowly and pieces sold off in various towns. Haven’t had anything besides my laptop to play CDs on. DVD player is new. My sugar daddy insisted I have a TV and DVD player for him to watch stuff. Now I sometimes watch stuff. Apple TV and Netflix are awesome. Check out the combo. I pay $8/mo for TV. I can rent current things and pay more, or I can watch all of Netflix thru the internet. But now? Now I listen to CDs on my TV & DVD.

How powerful is music that it doesn’t just suck you right back to when you loved that song or that was popular or when that went down. I still remember an acid trip I was on, Grateful Dead “Unbroken Chain” playing in the Ford Explorer…and then we crashed. I’ll never forget hearing that song and that scene. Well, Ok, I will forget. I will get old. And I guess I’ll see that at the end of it all, it doesn’t fucking matter.

What matters? You. You got to put your oxygen mask on before you help others. If your like me, you just know that certain people close to you need your help. How could they get by and survive if you didn’t watch over them? Seriously? Oh wait. They’ve been kind of doing it by themselves for sometime? And I’m a hot mess? Let’s look at ourselves.

Am I being the best that I can be? Am I reviewing what I’m grateful for? Am I laughing? Am I making others laugh? Am I here Now? Do I know where I’m going? All right then, let’s get on with it!

Be Dapper Blogville,

B. Wright

I’m going to Stop Self Medicating…tomorrow.

January 4, 2013 by My Experiments with Sanity

Hola crew! You down with my blogging crew? Yeah, you know me! Ok, some throw back to start it off. I’m cheesy, I’m well aware and loving it.

I’m going to keep running with the what worked for me. I’m so stoked someone found value in my last blog and will probably rock her world. Stoked, for sure. I’m honored to be of service and I intend to help as many people as I can. Stop thrashing through the thorns and pay heed to the ones who have already, almost, made it out. You never really do. Make it out. The foliage just thins out, sometimes to where it’s barely even there.

I’m going to try and start my blog with a review. They say if you don’t review material after learning about it, you forget pretty soon after. If you review something, you smoosh it a little deeper into the crevices of your brain, make it so it doesn’t blow away as easily. So much blows away. But we already know everything, so fuck it if it does.

I’m in a strange mood, as you may be able to tell. Way too wound up and really need to stop and take ten breaths. The real deal deep breaths where you fill and unfill every nook and cranny of your body. Suck it all in and spit it all back out. Do it with me…..

Damn, what did you have for lunch?

Better. Calmer. I think my heart rate may have dropped a few points. Ok, so what’s worked.

1) Control your thoughts, control your world. Easiest way to tell what your thinking is to stop and analyze what emotions you’re experiencing. Good? Keep at it. Bad? Reframe it to be good.

2) Believe in something bigger than yourself not for religion but so you can realize that the world does not revolve around you and that you’re just some dust speck, so stop being a useless dust speck, wake up…and believe in something greater than yourself so you can find your true calling and make your soul sing every day. Instead of a sickly soul. They were designed to sing.

3) Address physical and/or emotional pain. Emotional pain, you have to work thru. Get a therapist yesterday. Physical pain, you’d be amazed what you can learn with just a little curiosity. Google is my best friend. I’ve been the hot mess sprawled in the tall dusty stacks of whatever town library I may find myself in, piles of books strewn around me. I’ve been an avid gorger of information all my life and I just credit being really curious about almost everything. Some shit I don’t want to know about. Like shit. Don’t want to think about it. What worked. Focusing here…

4) Self-medication may be immediately gratifying but portion control for my fellow travelers is an elusive pipe dream. Plus different strains, if you blaze like me, have different effects. Like the dooky shit I have now that just makes me want to sleep. But of course I can’t.

Can’t nap anymore. Not bitching, just observing. It’s been months since I’ve napped. I used to nap daily, no joke. Daily for like years and years, and pretty much my entire life. But now, no naps. Sleep awesome every night, don’t hate. Eyes usually heavy as hell when I crawl into bed and when I hit that pillow I’m out in milliseconds. I totally get that I’m lucky as hell I sleep as well as I do. I think it’s because I have a pretty clear conscious, I try to live in communion with my fellow travelers and say what I’m thinking instead of short stepping around what’s bothering me. And my meds are working good.

Much easier just to swallow 2 purple pills, ½ a yellow pill, ½ a white pill, throughout the day. And my vitamins. Don’t forget your vitamins! Fish oil and 1 a day multi-vitamin. Good combo. It’s legal and I don’t have to go the exact speed limit so I don’t get popped for blazing in the car.

Today’s lesson? Stop self medicating. I will when I run out of this last bag of pot. I really think my new meds, maybe slightly increased, will make me better…for now. Ahhh, the gift of being bipolar and the cocktail of pills that is our reality.

I am so grateful to all of you out there who are reading this and all of you that are writing about your travels as well. Because that’s what life is, one big long trip. I’m stoked to be travelling in good company,

Sincerely Yours,

B. Wright

Best Year Ever…BYE!!

January 3, 2013 by My Experiments with Sanity

It’s 2013. We’re here. And we’re stronger than ever. This is gonna be the Best Year Ever; B.Y.E.! Happy BYE! I just want to send a big loud shout out to the entire blog community for being exactly who you are. I feel like I found a crew, a sailing crew, to sail the seas of what we call normal. Not normal for most people, but normal for us. Choppy fucking water and hungry sharks lurking around kind of set up. But you know what? I realized it’s all in how you see it.

The number one hands down thing I have worked on, and will continue to work on, is my mindset. What are the Gerbils doing? Are they calm, chilaxin, and coming up with genius? Good, let ‘em be. Are they all in a tizzy, yanking on their hair and running into each other? Let’s reevaluate what I’m thinking and learn how to reframe it. That’s the ticket. Observe and reframe if necessary. Change the show the Gerbils are putting on to one of joy, bliss and abundance. Peace within to spread peace infinitely.

Back in 2009, I was at an all time low. Homeless, flat broke, my sternum severely bruised, (I heard a pop and then couldn’t breathe. Worst part? It hurt to laugh.). Here I am, 29 years old, living in my mother’s basement. I felt awful and got into a real dark place. But out of that dark shit I was able to make the Dapper Program.

At the time, I wanted to go be a peace soldier. A real one. Not what people call Peace Soldiers today. Peace and fighting don’t go together. Peace Soldiers walk around with certain kinds of people who are being harassed or terrorized by other kinds of people. The effect of having an outsider watching makes the harassers refrain. I loved it and I so wanted to do it.

But then I started looking at the requirements, reading the literature. My heart sank. You had to be at peace within to be able to serve. At peace with myself? After the volcano I let erupt all over my life in Jackson Hole and send me crawling home to Mommy? No debate here; I was far from at peace with myself.

So I set about finding peace within. And now after 4 years, I am so stoked at how far I’ve come. Not to say that I’m finished. Dapperdom is a state one lives in practicing until the last dying breath. Always walking the path to being the best you ever. Always knowing that change and growth go hand in hand.

My struggles began long before 2009 and I have been searching for the middle way for a long time. It has been an amazing ride and I am so grateful for the shit I got drug through. Yeah, I stunk, but once I washed it off, it’s got some magic exfoliator in it or something, cause damn if I didn’t glow brighter.

So mindset. It’s all about your mindset. Pay attention to your Gerbils, or whatever the hell you call those guys doing their thing up there. Make them put on the show you want to see. Peace. Bliss. Joy. Abundance.

Something else I learned is that you have to have something greater than yourself. I learned that when quitting cocaine. White guy with a beard just feels so limiting to me. I see it as a big giant energy force, vibrating around and pulsing with life. I like to think about that giant web, blowing ever so slightly back and forth in a dark, dark, night. Stretching out infinitely into that dark space. Connected ever so delicately yet so fundamentally the same already. The same like how at the end of the day every single thing we see, real or not, is part of us. And we are part of…it all!

A study was done on cells and the people they came from. When the people were shown good things, the cells reacted in a positive way…even outside of the body over 300 miles away. The same if they saw something negative, the cells reacted into a negative state. Take charge of all those cells running around in you and make the show positive. Love. Happiness.

Lean back into life knowing that there is a force out there greater than us alone. It’s us together. And the power of us together is infinitely magical. If you struggle, let’s walk together. Over the years I’ve become so much stronger. I’m freaking diesel now so lean on me and the rest of those who have walked the path you’ve found yourself upon. We’ve seen the thorns and thickets. And now we can only see the roses. Join us, because it’s going to be BYE!!

Happy BYE!

Eternally Yours,

B. Wright

The chaos known as Me to the energy wave of We

December 22, 2012 by My Experiments with Sanity

I got to thinking about how far I’ve come over the years. I decided to share a glimpse ‘o me, what I was like, etc. and who I have grown into today with much difficult work. Although you know, of course, everything awful that has happened to you is a blessing in disguise.

When I discovered that, man did life become instantly better. A flat tire? Great, I need practice. Broke the screen on my iPhone and feel ghetto? I need some work on humility and don’t forget being grateful for the bounty I have available. We all have available. This abundant world. All this abundance shit? Law of Attraction? New to me in the past few years. But I’m running with it.

It totally makes sense to me and I’ve seen it work more times than I could ever remember. Not as much as I would like it to occur but I’m a believer. Rambling. Again. For some, the rambling is normal. How else does the mind work? To those dear readers that aren’t blessed with bipolar, I apologize for the digression and lets get on with this reflection.

1995: 15, sophomore in high school, smoking pot numerous times a day, dressing ridiculously scandalous at 90lbs and 34C, skipping class most of the time, “dated” guys who either dealt drugs or came from money so they could buy drugs. I put quotations around dated because getting smashed and fucking isn’t dating per se but I know there’s some fain of heart out there. Don’t read my shit then if you’re one, or at least at your own risk. There. Warning issued. Now I can finally sleep. Kidding.

1995: big into acid, big into getting fucked up as much as possible. I bussed tables at a once shwanky restaurant in my neighborhood. A night’s tip out was perfect for a pack of Reds, a little to pitch in on a bag with friends, get a 40oz. of some malt liquor and tip the bum for getting the smokes and booze. Ahhh, the good old days.

I guess I started to work for my meds pretty early on. I also babysat a couple times a week as well. I also got lunch money and sometimes when my dad would have a big wad of cash all rolled up hidden somewhere for some reason beyond me, I’d slide some bills out. It’s all about revenue streams flowing.

I also had a big klepto problem at this age. Shame to admit, but I even stool from people I liked who hosted soirees, aka keggers, while their parents were out of town. But only if it was a house where there was plenty. Fish tanks for walls and such. I’d like to send out an apology to all those out there, including the big corporations. Stealing is wrong. I would never do it again and stopped when I turned 18. Not worth it to get busted for another pair of expensive risqué panties.

My older brother ratted me out once when he got caught for stealing hood ornaments. He went thru a brief rebellion period, skateboarding and such. He got jumped by his rebellious friends and then that was the end of that phase. He said how do you think she can afford all those things she has? She steals them. Thrown under the bus for sure.

My parents are perfect and exactly who I was meant to be born into. In fact, I believe I chose them, as we all choose our parents for they have a problem that we as the next generation must solve. Or shit, at least try to solve. Then if you breed, you shit your problem/burden onto your child and so on down the line until we’ve solved all issues. We will evolve to such a high frequency of love and deep understanding of our connection with ALL that is, we just become some ginormous (wow, no spell check? That’s a real word now? I thought it was slang.) some ginormous symbiotic energy wave spreading love deep into the cosmos every which way. Wow. Won’t that be fun?

Always Wear Your Seatbelt!

December 8, 2012 by My Experiments with Sanity

I used to sleep insane hours. Compared to most people, I still do. My defense is being bipolar, we take in sooooo much more of the world than the average Joe. I have had to train myself to block taking negative energy from other people. If I see someone crying, I’m suddenly overcome voraciously with grief and…crying as well. But the blessing of it is that when I feel joy, damn that’s some good joy. And you can tune in to happy, joyous people as well. Happiness, euphoria, it’s all emotions right? I’ve been reading that tuning in to what you’re feeling is a good way to see what your mind is thinking. Do I feel bad? Change something if you do. Do I feel great? Awesome, let’s do more of this.

In the past few years, I think I may have become Pollyanna Positive. I’m always looking for the silver lining, the blessing in disguise. Cause you know it’s there. It’s always there. When you look back on some shitty times when some shitty things were happening in your life often you see that that shit made some damn fine manure. It made something change so that now you had some good times when good things were happening. A flower grew right up out that shit, huh? All right Polly, I’ll knock it off…

As usual, when I write these, I get way off track. And for that I do apologize. I really wanted to talk about sleep. So now, when I sleep sans alarm, don’t hate, as I pretty much always do, I sleep 9 hours. But only about 2 months ago, I’d sleep 11, 12 hours in one laying and take a nap as well. And I’m not talking a 20-minute power nap. Usually 1 to 2 hour nap. It’s easy to look back and realize how depressed I was. To me, my life was better in my dreams.

But now I don’t even take naps anymore. I’ve kind of always taken naps over the years. Sometimes I’d sleep less. Sometimes more. It’s the fun sleepy train of bipolar. But this not napping thing, it’s got me kind of hmmm…excited! Oh, I’ve laid down a handful of times over the past 2 months. But to no avail. I’d be tired from looking at the computer screen for too long and think a nap would refresh me. Yet I was like a little school kid just pretending to sleep but way too excited to sleep. And then I give in, get up, and go organize the Tupperware drawer.

I’ve been smoking pot because it turns out my docs actually don’t have the meds just right. I’ve got a new drug I’m supposed to start taking. Well, I was supposed to start 2 weeks ago. But I figured I’d run through the last of the pot first and then go to my pot in a pill formation. I’m almost out so it’s almost time.

I’ve quit before. I’m a professional quitter, actually. And I’ve known for a long time that this love affair has gone on long enough. Mary Jane doesn’t love me as much as I’ve loved her. It’s been a one-way street for some time now. It’s time for me to cut my ties. Say my goodbyes. It’s been a fun time. We’ll always have the memories, right sweetie?

Although, as I just reread what I wrote up there, it’s easy to ascertain I’m a little manic now. But who doesn’t love that? Oh right, the people around me. The dog doesn’t either since she just follows me around from one room to the next. Dog can’t get a good solid nap in that way. But I love it!! I know, I know, what goes up must come down. I said this in another blog that I’ve been excited but have this seatbelt feeling from my meds. Oh right, my seatbelt is broken. Damn it. Time to fix the damn seatbelt.