One of my ambitions for the future is to publish a short little book about what I believe. I want it to be very basic so that people will be able to relate to it and perhaps see that some of the ideas might have merit. I just want people to open up their mind a little more, outside the control of worldly religious institutions. I got an idea to post this blog as an exercise in helping me write this book. I'm pasting a question that someone sent me this morning, and the answer that I wrote back. The thing is, I don't really know how people will respond to these ideas. The answer might not be too well written and someone scattered, but I left it like that so you can ask further questions. I took a few rabbit trails and will probably leave some confused. I would love it if you asked any questions about what I think about reality, who we are, why we are here, what all this is, what we're doing here, where we are going, love, light, quantum physics; anything that has to do with the fundamental questions of humankind. This will help get stuff out of my head and onto "paper". If you have a random question I'd answer that to :)
This is not only to help me with my book project, but also to help me kind of question and organize what I really do believe.
Thank you! I really appreciate it. This will help me a lot. Vanessa
"I have many questions and would love to ask, and talk to
you. A major question I have is this; How do you change your mindset. I
know Its an answer only i can find, but what gave you the motive to
find the strength and willpower to change? I no longer wanna think
negative, all i want is happiness. Hope you can help, your music
already has. Thanks"
I'm glad you asked this. I've been focusing on this topic for a section
of a little book I'm working on. As someone who has come out of a very
intense depression and into a place of more balance, I feel that the most
important thing to start with is understanding what is going on inside
of you, as well as inside of the universe.
Let's start with the universe. Everything in the universe is a pattern
inside of a pattern, or a fractal. (You know how we take a telescope and
see what's out and above? Well, in the same way we take a "mirco"scope
to see what's in and below. As technology develops, we will be able to
see what's even smaller...and it goes on forever! There is a little
story I like to tell the kids I nanny for. One of them just laughs and
thinks it's the funniest thing, and the other one's mind is blown cause he totally gets it! Picture a raisin inside of a cookie, and that cookie is inside of a jar,
inside a kitchen, inside a house, inside the earths atmosphere, inside
our solar system, inside our galaxy...and it's all inside the raisin!
That scenario helps explain a fractal a little better. Based on that pattern concept, you could go on forever and ever inside the raisin.)
Everything is a parallel of itself. I was watering some on our fruit trees the yesterday and 2 of them had been ripped out of the ground by a recent tornado, laying on the ground with their roots half out. The water sunk slowly into the outer later of the earth, the grass that protects what's going on underneath, but was immediately absorbed when I stuck the hose beneath the broken tree. Just as the human body has it's
systems, and skin and blood, so the Earth has it's systems, and it's own
biological form of skin, the crust (ground/grass) as well as it's own
form of blood, dirt (both very iron rich.) The structure of the earth is a parallel of our own structure. The center of the earth is
iron crystal, which is where all this iron generates from, and is also
why we feel so great when we walk barefoot on the earth or ground
ourselves (getting in that meditative "indian style" position, aligning all of our chakras with the energy in the center of the earth.) The energy in the core of the earth replenishes our being.
Okay so back my point. My point with parallels/patterns is that through
our life journey, we spin round and round in our solar system, which is
constantly in sync with the surrounding planets. Now, if we study the
history of earth, we find that the way these outer planets move is always
presenting "conditions" on earth for the manifestation of the
happenings that we find in our everyday life. Someone has lived your
life conditions before, in a different way, though, because that person
will make different choices then you. It's a pattern that someone else
has lived before and someone in the future will live, but they wont live
the same life as you because you are a unique mind. I'm still not to my
point, I'll hurry up. If we study what each of these planets
represents, the conditions that they have "sent" to earth in our
history, we find a balance of good and bad conditions. Bad things happen, right?
Why? Isn't everything supposed to be good all the time? Well, in a perfect
world, yes. But if the world was perfect, there would be no reason for
existence. Why are we even here? I believe we are here for our
consciousness to have a growing experience, and if everything was just
peachy all the time, how could we grow? How could we learn our lessons
that make us a more developed soul? The one thing that I know is that when we leave this body vehicle, it gets even
more real. It's hard to describe the feeling of a different dimension
when we don't have the words in our language to do so, but why would we
need to? We are in this one for a reason. My point is that a lot of
people think that when they die, their soul goes somewhere else, that
it's some part of them that goes off and it feels like a dream, or not
as real as living in this plane. Many many people would beg
to differ. Compared to higher dimensions, this one feels fake. While
you're here, it's all you know; but if you ever have an experience where
you are exposed to the next dimension, all you can think about is how
much realer that one is. I can't explain it because we don't have the
words in our language, but I promise you everything here is not as "real"
as we think it is. Another rabbit trail...
So, we understand that there is a balance of good and bad for our own
benefit, that our consciousness may have an experience in 3D, in this
biological vehicle that our Creator so beautifully designed. (Where did
God come from? Well, our minds are programmed limited, not to understand
such things. Our Creator has an understanding beyond the 11th
dimension. We are always growing, right? So consciousness starts
somewhere, and learns and grows. We will understand greater things the
more our souls grow. But right now, we live in 3D, and we have the
limited understanding of the 3D "program". Think of our mind as a hard
drive; our eyes (which actually have "lenses" like a camera) look out and decode the information around us, the
"software." I could go on about this but I won't because it's beside the
point!!
Okay so...changing our mindset! This is something that I began to do in the Springtime, and in a different way, I'm working on again this morning. You can use this for any situation or struggle
that arises. We have a power inside of us that most of us will never
unlock, because we don't know it's there. First, understand that you ARE
love. God is Love, and the Bible says that "the Spirit of God indwells
in you." Pretty awesome, huh? We have a miracle living inside of us...I
mean, how is any of this even possible? How are we even here? It has a
be a miracle! So when we understand that we have a miracle living inside
of us, it opens up a whole new paradigm of understanding. Now we know
that we ARE love. "I am NOT all that God is, but all that I am is God." I
know it sounds strange and egotistical, but when we understand
that everything is One, that we are each a particle of light in an
infinite spectrum, it makes sense to know that every part of me is a part of God. I am not God, but my being is a tiny part of God,
collective consciousness, because consciousness is one, and we are all
part of it. So, we know we're love, because God is Love, and the Spirit
of God is inside of us. Now, how do things manifest? How to good things
manifest? How about bad things? Well, just as God created all of this,
we create to echo our creator, and we know His Spirit lives in us and gives us the power to do so. We have the ability to create whatever
we want in our lives, and it all starts with visualizing in our minds,
"thinking." The more we think about something, and specifically the more
we talk about it, the faster it will manifest. This is because the
universe responds directly to consciousness. Our reality consists of
vibrating atoms. EVERYTHING. Matter is vibrating atoms. (This is Quantum
Physics.) We also carry a vibration! Because we are vibrating vehicles
filled with consciousness, we attract things TO us. What do we attract?
Whatever we are thinking and talking about. When we tell people how
worried we are about something, we are making it manifest. We think,
which causes us to feel, which causes us to attract. The universe
doesn't care about making sure the things you don't want don't manifest.
The Law is that you attract whatever you vibrate. If you are vibrating
any negative emotion (fear, worry, hate, etc), you are attracting more
negativity. Ever notice that when you're having a really good day, and
one good thing happens and you're happy about it, then another one does
and you're like, "Wow!! I'm on a roll!". But some days you step out of
bed and stub your toe, and it's just downhill from there, and everything
makes your day a "bad one."
Changing our mindset...I promise I'll get to it. Go into this journey
knowing that is it just that, a journey. It probably won't happen over
night!! I started my journey in the Springtime, and by mid-June I
couldn't believe how different I was feeling on a regular basis. I'm still on this journey and I have so much to learn. The
truth is, we cannot be happy all the time. If we were, there would be
no reason to be here. But we can DECIDE how to respond to each situation
of life's patterns and cycles. There is always a high vibration we can
choose or a low vibration we can choose when we come to that "choice
point" as I like to call it. I've always been horrible with decisions. But I'm getting better as the days go by. The problem with me and choices is that either A) I don't know what I actually want, or B) I am fear driven and I can't make the choice that I should have because I am afraid. So here's a practical approach that I started working on in June. (And yeah, I haven't mastered it yet..cause I've made some pretty dumb, fear-driven choices lately.) When I feel like I'm giving negativity
an inch, I stop it right away. But believe me, THIS TAKES PRACTICE! As
does accomplishing any skill! After a few weeks of practicing it got
easier. I'm still working on it...but I know people who have really mastered this.
I believe that the secret is knowing who you are. I can only conclude
this because my life changed when I realized that I was love. From my
own personal experience, I believe depression is a symptom of an
identity crisis. For 3 years I also had a severe eating disorder. It got
so bad that I felt like that was who I was, I WAS the eating disorder.
But then I connected the dots of the eating disorder,
the depression, and the identity crisis. I had no idea who I was. I
thought that I was the eating disorder; I thought that I was depression.
I searched for a few months with some progress. I can't remember
exactly when it was, but it was in the Springtime that I was shown who I
really was. I believed I was love. Jesus taught, "As you believe, so
shall it be". Believe. "be"-"lieve"...."to give life to (an idea.)" Is
it a better strategy to believe that you are depression, or that you are
love? You beliefs frame your reality. They are your core, and will
effect every part of your existence.
So, to me, it's not so much about having willpower to change. Of course, it does begin with wanting to change!! I guess that would be the first step! And you've got that. You may feel like you just can not keep living the same way because maybe it's not working. In the Springtime, I reached a day where I had to stop and ask myself..."Why do I live like this? WHY am I living like this?" I knew I had to change. Once you realize who
you are (love), and you truly believe that to be the truth, that one
belief will reciprocate to all areas of your life. Our being resonates
with love at a higher vibration than any other emotion. The higher we
keep our vibration, the more happy thoughts and happy manifestations we
will begin to see around us. I have lived this over the past few months
and I know it to be true! This is a journey for me too, as I continue to
encounter things that cause me to think.."wow, what the heck, how did I
attract this?" BUT, I have also built up a lot of bad karma in my life.
(The Bible teaches karma, "reap what you sow.) In late Spring I began
to try to reverse this. Acts of service and kindness, completely putting
others' needs before your own, is not only rewarding in the moment, but
you are building good karma. It's the Law of Attraction! Am I loving
others? I will be loved! Am I putting others' needs before my own? My
needs will be met!
On a day like today in my life, had I not started to practice these
things a bit ago, I would probably be a wreck. (We all have these little trials that we go through; you're not alone.) But I know that I cannot focus my attention on something sad,
because it will only bring me more of it. I have no choice but to move
ahead and keep positive! And this has become so much easier because now I
understand who I am, why I am here, and how this whole "program" works.
I don't have everything figured out, and I'm not happy %100 of the time. I get sad when sad things happen or I make a fear-driven choice. But it's all about how we respond and get back up on our feet and persevere; that's when the real growing takes place! And I'm thankful for it! I have a lot of growing to do, and although I know at times it's going to be difficult to overcome some feelings, it's going to produce a better person when it's all said and done.
I hope I explained this well enough. Let me know if you want me to
expand on anything. This is actually a good exercise for me for my book
project.
I just posted the 5 songs I recorded in January. I've run into some changes in life since the beginning of the year, so all that's put me in kind of a "pause and think" mode for a few months. I've got a bit of a new direction in a personal sense of life, and all these little life lessons wrapping up at the same time have kept me busy, kind of pulling me away from career...work...obligations...all that stuff, and into a different area of self reflection and discovery. This summer has had a beautiful start in my life; I feel a clean break from my past. I have so much to learn, and I feel like I'm off to a great start, and I want to hold balanced in that! I hope you are feeling this in your life too. The summer solstice was yesterday; a perfect time to come alive in the now and forget your past.
So, these new songs.. I wrote them in December of 2009 & recorded them this past January. These are un-mastered versions. They're not going to be in any online stores, but I wanted to post them here so that people can hear them for the time being. For now, I'm just chilling out and writing a lot of songs...studying a lot too actually. I'm planning to travel a little bit this year for some higher learning. In November i started planning for a book. It's going to be a shorter book (because believe me, I'm no scholar), but I have some little things floating around in my head that I just want to um...let out? Haha. I'll be traveling a bit this year to learn more about what the heck I'm writing about. I know what I want to write about, and it's going to be an easy-read for everyone; I just have to do quite a bit more research on my ideas. My goal is to publish it by Spring of 2012.
The next step for me in music is recording a full length. I'll keep you updated on that; it's in the beginning stages right now. I plan to release it in early 2011.
Well, I hope you like the songs. I do love them. The conditions in my life are a little different now, from the time that I wrote the songs. Some things have changed. Some things will never.
Love you much, Vanessa
All songs produced by Kevin Gates, Christofer Drew, Caleb Denison, & Vanessa Rose.
Guest vocals on "One Wish" provided by Dani York, Sarah Franklin, Taylor Baker, Thalia George, Ariel
Bay, Corrina Delgado, Heather Matthias, & Megan Newkirk
Last week I was in the studio for 7 days recording a new EP. Just wanted to share a little bit about that.
The sound is pretty different than anything I've ever put out before. For the past 10 months, I have literally just spent my time thinking, reading, writing my thoughts down, and finding out who I am. I wrote all these songs during the fall time in the midst of this journey. It was a pretty rough year, but I learned a lot about who my soul is. I also learned a lot about my soul expression through my art. I wanted this new record to be as real and honest as we possibly could make it.
With the help of some good friends, I feel like that was accomplished. Christofer Drew, Caleb Denison, and Kevin Gates understood exactly what I wanted to do with this record, and helped me put my soul to sound. I wanted to make a moody, honest, bluesy, real life, rock & roll record, and I think we did just that. We used as little vocal editing and instrumental editing as we possibly could. Keeping the life in the songs was my number one priority, and I'm pretty sure Chris, Caleb, and Kevin shared the same vision.
For the song, "One Wish", we had some very helpful young ladies come into the studio and record some group vocals. Here's a little clip of that :) Sorry my voice is the only one you can hear; I was so close to the camera. In the photo, we were recording acoustic for a song called "Is it Enough?".
Thank you for reading :) I love you so much and can't wait for you to hear the new EP. Yes, my music is a little different now, and I'm a little more forward with lyrics. Some of my views on life have changed a bit, but I'm still the same person. Everyone is always growing and learning new ways to express themselves :)
Look for the EP to release in late March/early April. I have yet to decide what to call it. I'll post a song from it soon :)
Today I put up a song called This Game. I wrote it a long time ago about something I've been facing everyday.
These are the words to the chorus:
You tell me I'm fine; no reason to cry. Tell me again and try not to lie. There is no difference; every where's the same. There is no way for me to win this game.
You know when others tell you "Oh, you're fine...don't worry"? Maybe it was about something you said or did that you're worried about, or maybe it's your insecurities about the way you look. Do I say the right things? Am I attractive enough? Am I skinny enough? It's hard for other people to imagine how you feel when they don't know what's going on inside your head. In reality, they probably do mean it when they say, "You're fine!"....because honestly most people don't pay that close of attention and/or don't give a shit about something dumb that you said or if you're 10 pounds overweight. But when it's your life...your problem, you do care.
This Game is about depression. This Game is about insecurities. This Game is about dealing with pressure to be perfect.
NO ONE IS PERFECT. Even if they're a gorgeous and skinny model, they're probably dealing with depression, because they never eat or because of family issues, friend issues...the list goes on and on.
Let me know if you've got a perfect life.
I realized that no matter where I go, no matter how many times I try to start over, at a new school, in a new city, etc...if my mindset stays the same, everywhere is going to be the same. I'm still struggling with this right now. But I will tell you one thing. I've got the faith the size of a mountain, and I TRULY believe that I am going to change. I've always said that "If I'm going to change, I'm going to need brain surgery or a mental rewiring to change the way I think". God has already changed my mind in that I DO believe that I can change. Whenever I think about myself in the future, I see myself without this problem, which I think is the first step in changing your reality.
This song is for anyone that has problems.
I love you so much. Vanessa
Credits: Guitars performed by Will Vastine. Bass performed by Bryant Babbitt. Drums performed by Geno Valloni. Produced by Jeff Smith.
