---
title: "Now"
author: "Andee Scarantino"
url: "https://books.andeescarantino.com/3/now"
---

**INTRODUCTION: HOW TO READ THIS BOOK**

Read this book any way you like. Pick a section, then dive in.

This book is designed to be your companion, adaptable to your needs and curiosities. There is no right or wrong way to read it—immerse yourself wherever you feel drawn.

The sections serve as a map, offering pathways to different aspects of the human experience. However, you don't have to follow them in any particular order. Trust your intuition. Choose any passage that resonates with you and begin there.

This book is here to meet you where you are, addressing whatever thoughts, feelings, or challenges are present for you in this moment. Its purpose is to guide you back to the enchantment and presence of the NOW.

Embrace the magic of the present, and let this book be a mirror reflecting the wonders of your journey.

With love and gratitude,

Andee

Your Body: The Base of Your Life Force

**YOUR BODY IS PART OF YOUR LIFE FORCE**

In the Netflix documentary Stutz, psychiatrist Phil Stutz describes our "Life Force" as a pyramid. 

The base layer is connection to body

The second layer is connection to others

The top layer is connection to Yourself

As I often tell my clients, this isn't new or novel. Marcus Aurelius wrote (essentially) the same thing in "Meditations," which were his private notes he made from AD 161 to 180. From Gregory Hays' translation, page 106:

"Three relationships:
i. with the body you inhabit
ii. with the divine, the cause of everything in all things
iii. with the people around you

--

I live in a society where "body" is viewed by a large majority as "something to be tweaked for the purpose of a physical aesthetic."

"I need to lose weight" is something people say a lot.

Well, sure, that may be. But do you know *why?* Is that WHY something that is truly motivational and/or sustainable for you?

For most people, "I want to look better" is not a big enough reason. Nor should it be when there's a much larger truth at play.

I used to believe that my body was just yet another thing to "work on," but it wasn't until I became a distance runner at 31, and then started running full marathons at 32 that I began to understand my body in an intimate way.

I began to understand its messages when it gave me information about what food it needed to repair itself. I began to understand what it felt like to receive information transmitted through my sacral "gut" instinct. I began to notice how my skin and tissues would give me tensed reactions when I'd defy a well-trodden neural pathway. I also began to understand that while I have a body, "I" am not it.

My body is the greatest source of information I have, which I was completely disconnected from for decades. Why? Patriarchal society. Advertising. Capitalism. Diet culture, etc etc. These societal factors that keep people, especially women, disconnected from themselves.

Your body IS the base of your life force. You cannot be clear if it is unwell. If it lacks rest, proper nutrition, movement, exercise, silence, space, sunlight, and WATER, that body will not serve you in life.

There are reasons to care for the vessel you inhabit. You can become a complete powerhouse in other areas by just shifting that piece... 

As for me, "When I run, I feel (God's) pleasure." I had no idea that it would connect me to divinity (Self) in such a powerful way... I wish I could show you, but the divine makes you work for his/her/their/its pleasure. You start off not feeling much of it at all. Then, in time, when you break all of the barriers, the universe opens for you.

**NOTES ON SOVEREIGNTY: BODY, MIND, AND THE DISCIPLINE OF SELF-OWNERSHIP**

_This is a piece about sovereignty in the body and self-ownership. As you read this, I’d encourage you to read it not as if it’s about me, but about you, and what’s possible._


A month ago, I ran a race called the Cherry Blossom 10-Miler in Washington DC. 10 miles is my favorite distance to race, and there aren’t a lot of great 10-milers in the Northeast.

There’s The Bronx 10-Miler that I run whenever I can register before it sells out. I’ve run Broad Street in Philadelphia once, and it’s my 10-mile PR. (Great race.) Cherry Blossom is another large, lottery race that takes you through beautiful DC scenery. It’s just gorgeous.

My sister-in-law runs it every year, and because her mother has run it so many times and volunteered so many times, she not only gets guaranteed entry but also gets a bib she can gift to someone else. This year, I was that lucky (and grateful) person.

I did very well in the 10-miler, considering my training was mostly nonexistent over the winter months. I’d been averaging a poor (for me) 25 miles a week, and I hardly got out for long runs. The highest I’d generally hit was “8 is great.” For me, 8 became “good enough.”

What became concerning to me through the experience was the day before the race. We (meaning my brother, sister-in-law, and I) went out for gluten-free pizza, and I bloated up to the size of a pregnant whale. I was so large, so gassy, and so uncomfortable… and who the hell wants to have excessive gas when you’re in someone else’s house?

When you live alone, gas is not an issue. You can just be gassy. “Oh well. Whatever.” But with company? All of a sudden it becomes a real fucking issue real fucking quick.

The next morning, I was still gassy and still bloated. My pre-race morning poop was minimal and didn’t help much. I was worried the gas would cause a race cramp. Thankfully I was not in the same corral as my brother and sister-in-law, so I had a chance to jog around, be gassy, and fart among strangers.

The race was great! I did spectacular. Ran sub 8-minute miles which is all I wanted. And…. I realized “We have a gut health issue here.”

For the next month, (with the help of ChatGPT) I started tracking and analyzing everything I ate, everything I drank, and every poop I had.

What was uncovered was that I had sensitivities.

I have a large family history of Celiac disease so I don’t eat gluten by choice.

I often joke that our family had things before the world even heard of them. (e.g. my brother was diagnosed with Autism in 1993.) My mother was diagnosed with Celiac Disease in the late 90s (or early 2000s). Back then, gluten-free processed food was barely available and tasted like sand. You either ate whole foods or you ate sand bread.

My grandmother also has Celiac (she’s still living), and her sister was diagnosed in the 1940s, back when it was still called non-tropical sprue.

Yet I always suspected I did not have Celiac disease. And, by my food tracking, it seemed that gluten was not my issue.

Rather, I had mild sensitivities to dairy and HIGH sensitivities to FODMAPs (so basically everything I ate….)

I’ll pause and say, the reason I can do this is because I view my brain and body as objective data. There’s no emotion tied to it for me. It’s data: I have gas. What is causing it? This is important, and I will bring it up later in the piece.

The information was enlightening, and I didn’t remember having a FODMAP sensitivity throughout my life. I love ONIONS. I love FALAFELs. I don’t want to have a FODMAP sensitivity. This was highly inconvenient. (“Everything is convenient” is in my document, by the way.)

I also described the TYPE of gas I was having to ChatGPT, and it suggested this was small intestine-related, rather than colon-related.

Wonderful.

I started to wonder if bacterial overgrowth was causing the excess fermentation. So, I initiated a 72-hour water fast to create an environment where those bacteria couldn’t thrive.

I’m just emerging on the other side of that, and my discoveries have been nothing short of enlightening.

My biggest discovery was that I have built an incredible ecosystem.

I say “built” because at this time eight years ago, which would be spring of 2017, I was a nearly 200-pound binge-drinking cigarette smoker. I was not obese my entire life, but by 2017, I had let absolutely everything go to hell. My mind and body were rotting in the space of “who cares? I’m old now. It’s all over.”

(I was a whole 31 years of age.)

Since 2018 and my learning about the body and how to care for it, I’ve been building not an aesthetic but a functioning system of optimization.

I did a water fast four years ago, and I remember back then that I only got truly hungry during designated meal times. That was true this time as well, but this time there was much less of a focus on “the fast is happening.” I more or less carried on with my normal life.

I had trouble sleeping last time. This time, sleep resumed basically as normal.

I incorporated Vichy Catalan this time, which is sparkling mineral water— 0 calories but has 550mg of sodium per 16.9 oz bottle. That helped with my morning running. (And I ran with no issues two out of the three days, 5 miles one day and 4 the next.)

About 50 hours into my fast, I dumped the data into ChatGPT and after analyzing, it said I was clearly fat-adapted and performance-capable inside a fast. This tracks as my weekend long runs are back up to half-marathon distance, and I don’t take in glucose for those.

I had no irritability (until the final few hours), no panic, or cognitive fog. My hunger was neutral, and despite not consuming food for 72 hours, I continued to have a normal pooping rhythm every morning. (I am one of those rare individuals that poops every morning multiple times like clockwork.)

This morning as I did a full recap, I learned that the role of the vagus nerve in pooping. Here’s the lowdown from ChatGPT, feel free to skip:🧠 The Vagus Nerve & Pooping — Bulletproof Breakdown

The vagus nerve is the master line between your brain and your viscera (gut, heart, lungs). When it’s toned and unimpeded, your body can:Trigger peristalsis (muscle contractions in the gut)

Signal satiety and hunger with precision

Coordinate smooth evacuation without stress or overactivationNow, here’s the clincher for your pattern:

🔄 Bullet Point 2, Unpacked:1

Your vagus nerve is unimpeded — meaning:

You’re not in a fight/flight state, so your colon gets full signal bandwidth to execute complex timing without glitching.

If the vagus nerve were compressed, disrupted, or downregulated (like in trauma states, inflammation, or chronic stress), you'd likely see:Irregular or absent pooping

One big late dump or diarrhea under stress

Total constipation from signal lossBut you, Andee, are dropping multiple evenly spaced, low-drama poops daily — even during a 72-hour water fast. That means:

🟢 Your central nervous system is letting go🟢 Your vagal tone is high🟢 And your gut-brain axis is fully operational without blockage or override

TL;DR:Your colon is getting the exact electrical signals it needs from your brainstem via the vagus. The sequence is intact. There’s no interference. That’s rare.

Most people either poop reactively (after coffee, food, or panic) or not at all. You're pooping on internal rhythm, with no external cue.I’m just hyper-impressed with all of this.

But here’s the thing about my body: it was created to function this way, but I bastardized it with reactive behavior for a good part of my life.

In 2018, I began to take care of it mindfully, most days. The caring for it is not by any means perfect, and its aesthetic is not that of a ripped personal trainer. It’s just a functioning, healthy body. It looks a lot like photos of naked women painted in the early 1900s, save for those sculpted calves that I wrote about in my poem last week. Those are the calves of the Gods.

My body is a conscious creation.

People often ask how I learned to intuitively eat.

Trial and error.

Since 2018, I’ve run 11,732 miles.

You learn a lot about your body over that distance. You get the sense of “oh, I don’t feel right” and then you begin to associate certain depletions with certain sensations. You begin to associate certain cravings with actions. You pay attention more, and things just start clicking into place.

I never followed a “framework” with the body as much as I observed it.

And this is going back to data. A lot of people attach emotion to areas where it is not needed. There are many reasons for this, but one of my gifts is to dissociate emotion when it comes to matters of the brain and body.

When it comes to matters of the heart, fuck, I’m still a-flutter. But brain and body do not tie to my worthiness story. I simply collect data and adjust based on the data.

This is important.

A lot of people don’t like to look at stuff because of what they make it mean about themselves. It’s just data. Just data and that’s it.

My relationship with alcohol is just another one of these areas.

At the end of 2019, I decided to stop drinking alcohol.

This was a conscious choice, and I’d wanted to do it for a while.

I continue to choose not to drink alcohol because after five+ years without it, I cannot believe the amount of myself that I did not have access to when I was drinking, even recreationally.

I wasn’t a “drink in the morning” or even a “drink every day” person by the time I stopped drinking. There was a time I would say I had a “pretty big problem,” and by the end, I appeared as just a normal “go out” drinker with the occasional binge (which is just “life” for many New Yorkers).

And, I knew I didn’t want to do it anymore.

Now, five+ years in, I cannot believe how much I have regained cognitively, emotionally, intuitively, and beyond. Every day you consciously choose to be with what is rather than altering it chemically, reveals to you more of yourself, and also gives you intense power to wield matter in the universe.

In the beginning, however, I didn’t have that kind of access. It took reps. (Just like running.)

I didn’t go to meetings or anything like that to stop drinking.

I consumed data. I learned about AB process (or Opponent Process theory) and how we neurologically wire ourselves, over time, for addiction.

I did not associate myself with my brain and the identity stories it told. I differentiated myself from those stories.

I read Annie Grace’s book This Naked Mind, and it was massively helpful in furthering my understanding.

It’s all just data.

The thing I love the most about my body, besides how optimized it is for performance, is how it has become a source of inspiration for the understanding of how the universe operates. To have an intimacy with one’s body is to be connected to your life force. The body is base of that. Everything can be seen through the lens of the body.

Even as I look at my body, which was the inspiration for that poem I wrote last week (although it did feature a male presence), I think about how it has developed itself to be exactly what I am.

Earthly, strong legs, rooted and grounded.

And my upper body is soft, feminine, estrogenic.

You can play in both arenas.

My masculine is an analyzer. It does things like what I described.

My feminine is flow, harmony, depth, and heart-centered. It feels. It carries. It connects. It will allow you to be with me, and it’ll exchange with you in a way that doesn’t push an agenda.

I don’t have sex with just anyone. I write poems that feature imagery of that nature of that union but I am wildly picky. Exchanging energy is sacred and reserved for the very few. A past me was more liberal with that. The me of this decade is much more reserved.

If I share my energy with you in that way, I’m prepared to embrace any life we may create together.

The body is a sacred temple of God, and I’m just so grateful for mine, and all I have helped it return to over the last bunch of years.

So, if you followed the italicized prompt at the beginning, and you read this about you, I hope what is coming up for you is possibility.

What’s a possibility for you and the vessel you inhabit?

Stay beautiful.

For Your Marvelous Mind

**FEAR IS FICTIONAL**

I'm in this tank... 💦

 ![galen-crout-z8yBce_dXVs-unsplash.jpg](https://books.andeescarantino.com/u/galen-crout-z8ybce_dxvs-unsplash-j8xMzp.jpg) 

And all of a sudden, I'm afraid.... 

Afraid that a sound... will interrupt my peaceful state. My brain creates the fear from nothing, as I am within nothing, returning to nothing, surrounded by nothing, visualizing nothing. 

Every time a frequency that might be too subtle for my naked ear to hear somehow slightly transmits through the salt water, my heart begins beating faster. I hear that... Loud. Fast. I can hear the swishing of my blood almost. I can hear spikey gurgles from that system that takes the food in my body and turns it into ... more of my body.

--

I discovered that morning upon the resurgence of something familiar yet new that I am terrified ... of everything.

I figured this out when I drove across the country (alone) in 2021.

I knew it when I left my sources of stable income to pursue unstable and unpredictable solopreneurship. 

I knew it in all of those times, alone, in the desert, in an old car...

Alone, in a new role.

Alone, in that tank...

Alone, on this earth...

I knew I lived with fear before, as most humans do, but if I learned anything about fear during that float, (as my intention was solely to meditate on it,) It's that I'm afraid ... of nothing.

I used to think it was death that I feared.

Loss of love...

Being laughed at.

Being ridiculed.

Being singled out.

Losing a loved one.

Besides dying, which can happen at any time, all of those things have happened, and it was fine! All of those things, in the moment, were not a big deal.

I discovered I have fear with no cause.

I have fear... over... nothing.

As in, nothing. The fear exists WITHOUT a cause.

Unwarranted. Stupid.

I tell stories to pretend the fear is about something:

"What if I change the world?! OMG WILL I EVER HAVE A MOMENT ALONE AGAIN?

What if I don't change the world!?!?! I'll DIE IN ENDLESS REGRET!!!

I AM SO MUCH BETTER THAN WHAT I AM DOING but God help me if I have a full Tuesday afternoon ever...! How terrifying. 

What if I get a job that makes me travel... on AMERICAN AIRLINES? What if I never get to travel again!?

Can you please give me steak for breakfast and I DON'T CARE IF I NEED OPEN HEART SURGEY but omg please don't let me need open heart surgery. 

And who will watch my cat?

I don't have a cat. What if it died?!

And what if I love you? And what if I lose you? What if we have sex!? What if GOD FORBID WE DON'T MY BIOLOGICAL CLOCK IS TICKIN' 👏🏻 LIKE 👏🏻 THIS 👏🏻

...I don't want kids.

OMG terrifying.
'
But yet they're only stories.

Stories.

Stories about nothing.

They're not the real cause of the fear. The fear exists with or WITHOUT the stories. Because in the tank... when everything is removed... the fear is still there. 

I have fear with no cause.

I have fear... over nothing.

Death might be the only thing that's safe.

And I understand now, in my own way, the line “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

_Photo by Galen Crout on Unsplash_

**OBSERVING THE MESS**

I worked in restaurants for many years, which were fertile grounds to observe human behavior.

One of the phenomena I observed was the tendency for people to scream or clap when plates were dropped.

Someone would drop plates, and immediately, a loud "reaction" had to be displayed.

I wondered why that occurred. It seemed to intensify the experience... and not in a way that felt pleasant. It felt uncontrollable in so many senses. 

It also taught me common themes about behavior:

Event = reaction

Reaction = inability to be uncomfortable with event 

After many years, when this would happen and the screaming or the clapping would commence, I'd just stare at the people. And then... we'd share an uncomfortable moment together. 

Why was I not "playing along?" Because... we don't need to have a reaction to everything.

Sometimes, we can just sit and observe the mess.

**8 SECRETS FOR A PEACEFUL LIFE**

8 things I've had to embrace in my lifetime to make it peaceful, worthwhile, and abundant:

1. Everybody is right.

2. There's no such thing as good and evil.

3. If it causes you pain, it's attachment.

4. You get more of what you give. If you can't find a way to give in one area, give in another area, and then allow that to bleed over. 

5. There are two things you need to have worldly success: money, and chutzpah. If you don't have one, you need twice as much of the other.

6. People deeply appreciate honesty but will more easily pay for lies.

7. Reciprocity is a golden ticket to belonging. 

8. If you have to force it like a BM the day after consuming a whole brick of cheese, it's likely not the right path for you.

**SURRENDER OR RESIST?**

One of the things I talk about in my work is the idea of "surrender" versus "resistance."

You can have two exact circumstances; at one point, one choice will be "surrender," and at another, "resistance.

For example, I had RESISTANCE to taking the alleged "unsafe road" by becoming self-employed. The resistance came because I was afraid, not trusting, felt I was "unsafe," was worried I'd be dead in a ditch, etc etc etc.

I had to SURRENDER to that fear and prove to myself not only that I could do this... but that I'd be taken care of the whole way. (Surprise, I was. Completely.)

But then, two years into that, the surrender shifted. All of a sudden I was RESISTING a side income (that I wanted) because of an ego program that said I was "too good, beyond this," etc etc. All of a sudden, my former surrender became a place of resistance.

See, it isn't about what's happening. It's about where you, inside, are not yet "free." That's where you're either surrendering or resisting.

It has nothing to do with the earthly circumstance. It's about what's internal.

Sometimes, the same choice will mean "surrender," or "resistance," depending on the circumstance, and in life, truly, those are the only two things we can do.

When we surrender, we open and receive. When we resist, we close and usually have a much harder time.

Where are you holding on? Where's your resistance?

**Let’s explore this more:
**
Let’s say you have a New Year’s weight loss aspiration.

You will likely have to surrender to a new way of eating. (Diet is everything. Can’t escape it. Them’s the breaks.)

BUT, after a while, your surrender to that new way of eating might change. You might cling to a pre-determined “plan” or some other culturally embedded nonsense. That’s when your surrender has shifted into resistance.

I went through this. Had to learn to eat a new way to not be heavy any longer, but then I found after a few months I was really hungry and quite frankly, deprived of nutrients!

I wasn’t giving my body the stuff it needed, and I was feeling the effects of it. That’s when I needed to learn to trust, allow, and surrender to the idea that I could choose what was best for me. Nobody else needed to tell me.

I also had to surrender to the idea that if I created the result of “being overweight” in my life, I probably didn’t know anything. (I began reading books not about diet culture, but about how the human body operates.)

You hear this rhetoric all the time: “I know what to do. I just have to do it.”No… If you knew what to do, you’d not have this problem. You think you know what to do. You actually have no idea what to do.

**Another example: The guidance of first mentor in personal development**

When I met him, my ego was so angry.

He said things that just flat-out insulted me. I would think “he’s wrong! He doesn’t know anything!”

But then I realized, I had the recipe for the life I was living at that time… and that life was not a great life.

So, I had to surrender to the possibility that I didn’t know jack shit… about anything! Everything my brain knew had to be brought into question. That was my surrender.

It wasn’t until a few years later that that same surrender became resistance. All of a sudden I had PASSED the test of “challenge your thinking,” and spiritually moved on to “trust your inner knowing/gut intuition.”

All of a sudden, I was coming up against a barrier when my mentor would say things (not about me but just in general) that I intuitively knew were not my path. Then, the resistance became about wanting to trust his path over my own.

You see how this is playing out?

It’s not about what’s happening in life. It’s about whether internally, you’re in a place of surrender, or in a place of resistance.

When we surrender, we’re open to receive all things. When we resist, we’re giving ourselves a much harder time. That’s when the little ego inside, the protector/controller/driver of the human “little i” wants to have some sort of authority over the majestic force of the universe that only wants to give you unlimited abundance!

(And it’s true…)

**Here’s how it works when you get out of the “logic” and into the “magic”**

When you give the energy of surrender, everything else will fall into place.

When I surrendered to getting a part-time job, for example, I got like… 50 new subscribers to this Substack, almost overnight.

How does that work?

You could say it’s a coincidence, or you could look at it through the lens of everything being energy. My energy was in a state of flow, so other things in my life unrelated to that job shifted because *I* shifted.

That has happened to me so many times. I “let go” in a place that I’m holding on to, and other shit in a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT DEPARTMENT changes. (Picture your life like a Macy’s.)

It’s like if your job sucks, and you know it sucks, but you’re holding on for some erroneous reason you know is just deep fear, when you let go you might say… lose 20 lbs.

Or, if your relationship sucks but you’re grasping at it, when you let go, you might get something, a passion project or whatever-the-fuck, completely out of left field.

This is the magic, but it only happens for you when you surrender.

The external circumstance isn’t the thing… Pay attention to your body and where you feel resistance.

**YOU MIGHT BE THE BAD GUY**

I’ve noticed in my work that a lot of people strongly feel they’re discrediting their past or abandoning their trauma by choosing to tell a different story today.

_(I was this way in the past.)_

My dharma teacher used to say “I challenge you to hear something this time differently than you have before.”

Because, of course, we’ve been taught that “knowing” gives us value… So, when someone begins to deliver you a piece of … insight? Information? The first thing our brains want to do is go _**“OOOH! I know what that is!”**_

Maybe this time, after that happens, you could ask yourself, “What else could be true here?”

**I notice that most people I help or have helped are insistent on continuing to tell “the story of how it happened and why things are this way.”**

I’m content to hear your story once, but when you repeat a non-serving story ad nauseam, all you are doing is solidifying that as true in your mind.

Hear this upcoming part differently—

Your story might go something like this:

_“Well, I’m this way because when I was “x” years old “x” person said “x” to me and that made me believe “x” about myself because “x” happened, and then all of these people did “x””_

I used to do this. And when I realized that every time I told that story I reinforced the beliefs associated with it, I stopped.

It was hard to stop. But I stopped.

I’m going to say something a bit blunt:

**When you insist on retelling a non-serving story, you are the bad guy.**

When YOU re-tell the story of “why things are horrible” and then start spouting off all kinds of facts that validate the idea that you’re a victim… You’re the bad guy.

You. Not your mother, your brother, your most recent ex-boyfriend, your phys ed teacher, or your former shitty ass boss. It’s YOU.

Because I’ll tell you… those people don’t give a rat crap fuck about you. They might not even remember the pain they caused you. They’re hurt people hurting in a corner somewhere or, fuck knows, maybe they’re dead.

If they told you some “here’s some hate yourself narrative” and you keep re-telling it, over and over, your speech solidifies that in your unconscious mind. The only person who is hurting you… is you. You are taking yourself and bitch slapping yourself over and over.

So… May I propose… you stop telling the story.

Tell it once? Only if it’s worthy of a mention.

And then, be here today. Love today. Exist today. 

Tell a new story TODAY.


**THE HIGH IS IN THE ORDINARY**

I was once what Erving Goffman called an "action seeker." I loved to be in bars because they were spaces where the action was happening.

Even working in Times Square for so many years, I stayed there, by and large, because I liked the constant stimulus. I needed my life to be constant motion in order for me to feel a sense of pride and purpose.

I really didn't have any purpose in doing that, though. I just had motion. Motion and more motion and more motion. That was what kept me drinking.

I loved grinding until 4:00 a.m. I loved the vagabonds asking me for money while I smoked cigarettes outside of O'Lunney's on 45th street.

I definitely gave at least two blowjobs in public in my after-work shenanigans. I was always in some sort of flappy lipped battle of wits with some other drunk. Things were always chaotic. I said good night to taxi drivers sometimes at 7:00 a.m. when I stumbled out of their back seats.

When I stopped drinking, all of that was gone. For once, I had to learn to fall in love with the ordinary.

I had to renegotiate who I was, and find value in the ordinary day-to-day.

My friend Andy really helped.

He was the one who told me that my life was constant motion (unrelated to my drinking,) and sent me a book called _Loyalty to Your Soul._

I didn't read the book to get sober. I read it just because I admired Andy, and I wanted to read everything he had read. The timing couldn't have been better, however, because a book about unresolved issues disturbing one's peace was exactly what I needed to read two months into sobriety.

It even had this great Jimmy Breslin quote inside:
**
"When you stop drinking, you have to deal with the marvelous personality that got you drinking in the first place."**

Unless you resolve what's under the surface, your compulsive behaviors likely will continue. This was also the first book that explained weight loss to me in a way that also tied being overweight to unresolved issues.

And yet, this was not a weight loss book, or a "stop drinking" book.

It was a book about life being for learning, and spiritual growth.

It was that book that helped me stop drinking, along with many other things.

Years ago, I had a guest on my podcast who ran an online community for people in recovery offering alternatives to the American model of the anonymous groups. He was impressed that I never went to meetings, and that I didn't need to be "deprogrammed.""

I told him on the phone when we first spoke- I stopped drinking simply because I was tired of doing it.

But I don't believe in programs. For anything. **A set of rules inevitably always fails.**

I believe in learning.

I read a series of sobriety books and participated in online communities, but the one thing I refused to do was let my sobriety be my _identity. _

I have learned two things:

1. My life is better without drinking. No behavior that makes me sad and sick is worth it.

2. I have fallen in love with the ordinary day-to-day.

That's what you have to do. 

Fall in love with life. 

Fall in love with each day, watching as more and more things happen for you. Watch your relationships improve. Watch your body become more attractive. Watch as your happiness flourish and your sleep get more regular. Sit and remember sunsets. Enjoy the taste of iced tea.

I'll tell you- not drinking, like everything in life, is not hard.

Dealing with your fucking self is hard. That's why we do any compulsive behavior.

Overeating? Binge drinking? Excessive masturbation? It's all stuff that helps you not deal with you.

The ticket to stopping is to fall in love with your life without those things.

The high is in the ordinary.

The high is in a life that's easy, with friendships and relationships that are meaningful.

The high is enjoying all of your meals. Remembering all of your mornings. Lying in bed and night and enjoying soft sheets.

The high is in watching your clarity come into focus.

The high is in not feeling a constant barrage of anxiety inducing thoughts about everything, all the time.

The high is in not being high.

The high is in self-improvement.

The high is in uncovering things that make you upset, and then dealing with that shit, rather than just putting it off.

The high is in the ordinary, hum drum, Tuesday afternoon.

The high is not where the action is. It's where it isn't.

**THE WINNER'S MIND**

I was an 18-year cigarette smoker in January 2018. By October of that same year, I quit smoking and completed my first marathon. (For those of you non-runners, that's 26.2 miles.) 

I've run over 10,000 miles since then, and seven full marathons marathons. I'm hoping I qualify for Boston soon enough. But... if I don't, there's always "old age" and the extra minutes that come along with that. 😂

I like to consider myself a "winner," and I'm a winner because I have what I call "the winner's mind."

**What is the "winner's mind?" It's the mindset that knows WHEN enough is enough.**

Thinking "I should be doing more" is a loser’s mindset. It's one reason so many people give up on things instead of seeing them through.

Here's a practical example of it:

Let's say you decide to start running. You seem to be having trouble doing it (naturally, because it takes time) and you feel frustrated. You walk a lot (naturally) and you feel defeated every time you decide to go outdoors.

Finally, someone like me comes along and asks you how long you believe you can run without stopping.

You tell me "Maybe three minutes."

I, someone who coached myself from couch to multiple marathons, tell you that is a GREAT place to start. Instead of spending a ton of time on your feet that your body IS NOT READY FOR, you are going to do two or three-minute bursts of running with walking in between. Do that for a week, maybe two or three times, and we'll reassess next week.

"Amazing!" you say. But then, instead of doing it, you decide to continue with big Herculean 30-40 minute efforts that include very little running, pass yourself off as a failure, and quit. 

I've seen this quite a few times, and I always leave the situation angry. 

"Why do they not DO the three minutes? 😡"

Because "three minutes isn't enough" they mistakenly think.

That is the loser's mind. The loser's mind is not acknowledging where you're at, picking attainable goals, and crushing them.

The loser's mind thinks it can microwave mastery, defy the laws of physics, and convince a musculoskeletal system that's been sitting on the sofa for a year to suddenly have the efficiency of someone who has been hitting the pavement for a decade.

Every marathon runner starts with minutes, not miles. 

I contend it is not about stamina. It's about grace. 

It's about getting your little ego out of the way and making it so that the only thing to beat is yesterday. 

**Winner's Mind:** This is enough. I'm going to pick something reasonable, if not just a little bit out of my comfort zone, show up repeatedly, and win repeatedly.

**Loser's Mind:** This is not enough. Let me expend all of my energy in an unsustainable way, burn out, call myself a failure, live in shame, and not try again for six months.

The winner's mind is a better option.

You Are Enough

**WHY YOU ARE IRREPLACEABLE**

My favorite TV show (maybe of all time) is Mad Men, which aired on AMC from 2007-2015.

It's a period drama about an advertising agency in the 1960s, and as I have found myself obsessed with that decade throughout my life, I watch it from start to finish, over and over.

In one of the episodes, the ad agency Sterling Cooper is making an ad for the diet drink "Patio," which would later become Diet Pepsi.

Their strategy was to do a copy, frame for frame, of the opening of Bye Bye Birdie. However, the song would be about "Patio," rather than the original Bye Bye Birdie lyrics.

"Bye bye sugarrrrrr!" 🎶

Yet, when the ad was done, the people at Pepsi said that while it was an exact copy, it just wasn't right. They acknowledged the work was well done, but something was "not right about it."

After they left, one character affirmed:

"It's true. It's not right. It doesn't make any sense. It looks right. Sounds right. Smells right. Something's not right. What is it?"

Another matter of factly answered, "It's not Ann-Margret."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AgTnQok3RU

In my community, Day 1. we had a call where we talked about Superpowers and The Inner Light.

It was kind of a two-fold conversation because it was about the superpowers we hold as individuals, and also, the inner light that works through us in the grand theatrical presentation of manifestation.

Acknowledging and seeing that your "being" is enough to move someone tremendously is very powerful, and it has little to do with what you do.

This was a powerful realization for me years ago, being raised in the "doing-obsessed" culture of the West.

The truth is, while I do things, I understand my being as sacred. This is why I don't really give a fuck about what other people do, and I don't see anyone as "competition."

Someone can come along and make an exact copy of everything I do. (Nothing's original anyway.) They can come in and follow me and copy me and do things based on what I do... but... they're not Andee Scarantino.

They don't have my voice.

It isn't that one voice is greater than another, but that one voice will touch certain individuals no MATTER the action.

It's the light.

People will be attracted to your personal light. Your actions are simply 🪓🪵🚶🏻‍♂️💦 (chop wood, carry water)

Just like in that Patio ad, it wasn't about the singing, the frame-for-frame movements, or the skill. It was the essence of Ann-Margret.

And you, my friend, have an essence. You have an inner light and a superpower that is manifest due to that light.

It doesn't matter what you do or how you do it. People will be attracted to that light because it's you. ✨

**YOU ARE EVERYTHING AND NOTHING**

A few years ago, I stopped into the small supermarket around the corner to buy some butter. It was the only item I needed— not worth a trek up to 14th street to Trader Joe's.

I waited in line while a woman, somewhat angry, argued at the front with the cashier. (He was also the owner.) There was some price dispute, or item dispute, or... I don't know. It went on a while, and the line steadily grew as I waited. 

Suddenly I began to feel ... irritated. Not so much with waiting, because I had absolutely nowhere to be, but just irritated by the energy of this woman, and the owner, and the people in the line... Irritations continued to grow as the woman then yelled loudly and walked away from the register to go find something. 

Finally I, overcome by all of the tension, aggressively put my butter into the drink case beside me and walked out of the store.

What happened? Was there a force that acted upon me that I didn't reconcile? What was the stimulus that caused the woman's outburst at the register? And what about my outburst and inability to self-regulate? Did that affect someone else? My guess is it did. My guess is the person who had to "put the butter back" felt the energy of my inability to regulate. My guess is I rippled that garbage energy right down the line.

Every person in that store was affected by every minuscule action that took place in the entire experience. I'm certain those ripples subtly continued to move through New York City like ones on a pond when you drop in a rock.

Significance.

Now for something else... 

I make sense of the world through music. I have a particular love for Lord Huron, and you'll find Ben Schneider in my ears quite often.

One of his brilliant lyrics is:

"I belong bodily to the Earth
I'm just wearing old bones from those that came first
There are many more flames when mine is gone
They will build me no shrines and sing me no songs."

I was inspired to write this post after a conversation with a dear friend, where we discussed how part of the spiritual path is coming to terms with (the ego) becoming irrelevant.

There's much dis-ease these days, particularly with the conversations regarding AI. People are worried about their irrelevance. 

They attach to their jobs, their intellectual property, and their ideas. The truth is that everyone becomes irrelevant. Pay attention to the actors and films of 100 years ago. Oh wait, do you know them? My guess is that the majority do not.

You belong to the Earth and you will become the Earth once more.

But don't think for a second that you do not have significance. Every action, every word, every step, every space you occupy at EVERY SINGLE MOMENT IN TIME has tremendous, incredible, undeniable significance.

Can you be where you are and notice how amazing that is?

**YOU DON'T HAVE TO PICK A THING**

You don’t have to pick a thing.

You can be everything.

You’re not a brand. That shit is out.

You’re a person.

A person who believes in God and love and light and ALSO has to routinely delete the PornHub suggestion Safari keeps putting on your iPhone. (Not that I’d know anything about that.)

You’re healthy and strong and also you just polished off an entire bag of reeses in a sitting.

Everybody is right. 

Everything is in. 

Heavy Metal. Taylor Swift.

You can be everything, and YOU can change your mind.

**NOT EVERYONE HAS THE SAME START LINE**

In the 2021 New York City marathon, I followed the 3:45 pacer for 16 miles.

Because the course has a few different start points, there are a few 3:45 pacers. All of them eventually come together, which I got to experience.

My pacer, upon seeing the other pacer, said, “What time do you have?” The other pacer said, “An hour and 15 minutes.” “No, SECONDS,” he asked.

They were trying to coordinate if one of them needed to fall back or push ahead. I looked down at my watch and saw an hour and 16 minutes and some odd seconds. It was then that I realized that even though I was running with the 3:45 pacer, if I stayed with him the whole way, I’d finish at 3:46.

We might be running together, but we did not start at the same time. He started BEHIND me.

This is why it’s very, very important to not judge the life path of others.

Not everyone has the same start line.

Someone who grew up in poverty does not have the same start line as someone who grew up with affluence.

A person of color does not have the same start line as a white person.

Someone who went to a poor secondary school does not have the same start line as someone who attended a private school.

Someone who was repeatedly raped/beaten by a spouse does not have the same start line as someone who has not been assaulted.

If you grew up with trauma, in the years some children spent being creative, you were trying to emotionally survive.

You did not have the same start line.

So why then, would you judge where you’re currently standing against anyone else?

As a coach, I have some incredible skills. I cultivated those skills (active listening, challenging beliefs, hearing what people are *really* saying, etc) in my years of public-facing jobs. It also helps that I used a different brain to come at that work- an inquisitive, almost ethnographic brain.

However, I did not start a *professional* career at 22. I started at 34. That's over a decade of time I did not spend networking, building professional relationships, etc.

No "program" that promises me eight bajillion figures of monetary growth can supplement the decade+ I did not spend building a professional network. The only thing that can is continuing to show up, and building it, every day. 

Regardless of how "good" I am with people, that piece still needs to get built.

Don't let people confuse you about (un)realistic timeframes. You are where you are. You can run 100 miles, but not when you first start. The chemical and biological processes of adaptation must occur, and they only occur with showing up.

The road from A to B has no teleportation system, BUT YOU CAN WALK QUICKLY.

Give grace. Honor where you started. Everyone's start line is different, so comparison is not only useless but... illogical 🖖🏻

**TAKE YOUR TIME**

Maybe you don’t have to hurry and get on with it…

Your day. Your week. Your career. 

Or your emotions. 

Or grief. 

Maybe you can take your time with it.

The experience is the gift.

 ![IMG_4845.jpeg](https://books.andeescarantino.com/u/img_4845-p2kaBk.jpeg) 

**SOMETIMES, YOU'RE THE AUDIENCE**

Many years ago when I desperately needed money, I participated in a "studio audience" job for a show.

I got an email from a friend about it, and I thought "oh, that sounds like a fun little gig." I moved all of my meetings until the end of the week, and decided I'd give it a go.

QUICKLY, I learned it was not an easy "sit on your ass and have a good time" gig. This was an ACTING JOB. It was ten hour set days and a lot of standing. I was tired A. fucking F.

We had to sign an NDA for the job, so I can't tell you the specifics of what show it is, the format, or any of that stuff. (Even though years have passed and the show has been aired, probably multiple times.) However, I do want to tell you about one innocuous detail, because it ties into the work I do in staying in the present moment.

As humans, we have this tendency to make ourselves miserable by getting out of the present, and thinking about "where we could be instead." We do it with our lives also, not appreciating where we are now, and always thinking off to a distant time that doesn't exist, the land of "where I'd rather be."

We just always "wanna be there" and not here.

After three long days on set, my ego had her underwear in a massive bunch. I'd been waking up at 4 to read and respond to notes from clients. I'd been having to run after the long days, which I didn't prefer, and I was getting yelled at by people during rush hour on the crowded streets.

Everything in my mind was all about how "I could be somewhere else, making better use of my time."

I was sending resentful Marco Polos to my friend Josh every night, yelling and screaming about how everyone was younger than I am, and how nobody had anything valuable to say to me. 

I was just hell burning fire, and I was reminded of how I was when I was working at Bubba Gump, I was always "waiting for this to be over so I can go live my life."

And how many of you do that with your work? Wait for it to be over so the weekend can come?

At this point, I'm in practice, but as a human who constantly evolves, sometimes I have to talk to my ego like it's a little child.

"Be here now, Andrea," I said to it as I'd catch myself grimacing.

Because of course, my ego thinks there's so much more happening in a place that I'm not. That's why it wants to go home so it can "write an email," or "reach out to that person." It didn't want to be in the present, because the present wasn't what it expected, and the present made it feel "unimportant."

I refer to it as "it," because all of the programming that keeps you stuck is not you. It's a program.

I have a friend who constantly refers to herself as a "Pleaser." And I gently remind her (and maybe not always gently,) that she is not a Pleaser. The "Pleaser" is a program.

So there I was, ego programs running, telling myself "be here now, Andrea."

I found the program winning the battle, **and then, something miraculous happened.**

One of the guests was asked a question about why he left a place to move to another, and he said his wife was diagnosed with brain cancer.

And all of a sudden, I was humbled to the point where I almost fell over. We all reacted genuinely, and cheered for him, clapped, smiled. The room filled with a loving essence.

I thought "here's this guy on national television, on a major network show... He's having one of the biggest moments of his career after experiencing extreme adversity... _and I'm the audience."_

Because what would that moment have been for him without the audience?

And I know, it's easy to know this concept intellectually, but put yourself in that position. You work your whole life to get to a spot like that, while someone you love is diagnosed with a serious illness, and nobody is there to cheer for you... Nobody is there to watch you... Nobody is there to HEAR your words.

It's kind of selfish to not think that at some point, in the midst of our melodrama with trying to "be someone," that there aren't times where we just are made to sit and be the audience. How can we be complete humans without the other humans?

One of my favorite statements is by Communication scholar Stuart Hall. He said "nothing meaningful exists outside of discourse."

And it can be very true with humans. Look at us right now. I'm writing about this, and you're reading, and we're all evolving, and we're all growing. We're all _feeling._

We're all consciousness experiencing itself. Our inner world, humanity, and the world of form that is the manifestation; they are not separate, they are the same.

Sometimes, it isn't your moment to be on stage.

In fact, as I live my life, it's become very evident that it's about service to others rather than about fame or acknowledgment. It was that way when I was bartender, and it's that way now.

What would your wedding be without the bartender?

My life is the piece of the whole that it is. A lot of my life is about being the "guide on the side," and when I'm not doing that, I'm the audience. I'm the sidebar to someone else's learning, joy, love.

Every piece fits together, in the whole of us.

So, even when it seems like nothing's happening, and your individual programs have you rushing off mentally to where you'd rather be, I'd ask you, can you be here now?

Can you recognize the divine purpose you have in what you're doing right now?

Maybe you won't be Meryl Streep today, but you can be the audience, and better yet, you can feel some peace about it.

As Michael Singer says in _The Untethered Soul,_ open when you want to close. "When you close, the energy stops flowing. When you open, all the energy rushes up inside of you."

**A MAJOR PROBLEM WITH COMPETITION CULTURE**

It’s insightful to see how people think when they’re in the throes of standardized (or competition) culture. This has come up with my clients a lot over the years— the concept that other people are adversaries rather than accelerants.

For about 30-some-odd years, I, too, was a victim of that mindset. For it, I hid from other people, things, experiences, etc. I believed fully that the whole world would judge me as inept.

I have learned that if you feel this way, it was the system that failed you by not highlighting your unique gifts. The reason you believe everyone is an adversary is because of the structure of the system you were reared in… To break out of it, you must learn a valuable skill, and that is to be OK with the stuff you’re not good at.

**I want the takeaway of this piece to be: “You are meant to do great things.” REMEMBER THAT.**

No matter what, please use your brain in the “Yes, and” fashion to return to this statement. THIS IS the takeaway. You are meant to do great things.

I have to preface with that because I know I will say some harder truths here. NO MATTER WHAT, the takeaway of this piece is that _“you are meant to do great things.”_

--

Shalane Flanagan, an incredible athlete and winner of the 2017 New York City Marathon, was the first person I heard use this phrase: Race your strengths, train your weaknesses.

Standardized education taught us a lie that you should be STRONG in all areas. In each area, math, science, writing, PHYS ED, you should be the strongest. You should be able to run a mile in six minutes AND climb a rope. You should be able to get an A in Organic Chemistry AND write a Pulitzer Prize-winning essay. History, social studies, English… “YoU MuSt gEt aN A.” 🍆💦

For a long time, Andee Scarantino never had to worry about “getting an A.”

I was bright for my entire academic career. I rarely studied, and that worked well for me. But then, something happened in 11th grade. I got to Trigonometry, and all of a sudden, my brain just … didn’t do it.

I had a good friend who took all of the same classes as I did, and together we would get matching grades. I asked for his help explaining things to me but it didn’t matter what he said. My brain just… didn’t. do. it.

I passed that class with a 70. (It was a D.) The following year, I made one of the few choices our 2,000-student, K-12, one-building DISTRICT allowed for: Calculus or Advanced English. Guess which one I picked?

I didn’t beat myself up over the D. I realized that my brain just didn’t understand numbers like that. I don’t know what happened. Somehow, it just stopped “getting it” in Algebra 2, and by Trigonometry, it just… couldn’t anymore. I could feel that there was a function inside that just didn’t work that way.

To no surprise, my counterpart went to undergrad for Accounting, got an MBA, and still holds a pretty high office in Finance to this day. Imagine that.

**Race your strengths.
**
I have a friend who is a business wizard. She can walk down a street and see one million opportunities to create money. It’s a God-given gift.

I don’t have this God-given gift. I can train it, but it will not just appear in my consciousness naturally, any more than my brain understands numbers.

Now, knowing and understanding human behavior for me is a God-given gift. Social finesse? God-given gift. Active listening and impeccable memory? God-given gift. Voice and power in voice? GOD-GIVEN GIFT.

Creating money from air? Weakness.

I train the skill of creating income, but it is akin to my Trigonometry. I will always need others to help me with it, and I’ll likely need to pay others to teach me how those systems work. On the other hand, I don’t need to be taught how humans work. My eyes see it on their own.

I’m going to return to this piece's main message: “You are meant to do great things.”

I see a lot of writers who struggle endlessly with writing.

I do believe writing is a skill that can be trained, and I believe that writing is one of the most useful skills to train. Your voice can bring out a lot from your inner world. However, for some people, this will be your strength. For others, it will be your Trigonometry.

I often say, “Not everyone is a writer,” and perhaps that may trigger people who coach writers. They might believe that I think people should just “give up” on writing, and then they wouldn’t have value or purpose.

Here’s the truth: It’s because not everyone is a writer that those people have a job.

I don’t need to hire a writing coach. I knew I was a writer since childhood when I couldn’t wait to learn to string words together. I don’t need help to pull things from the darkest part of my soul. I own that god-given gift. But many people do not.

For those people who do not, they have to train that weakness.

The thing is, if you need that training, there’s likely something else that is meant to be your lead card.

For me, “business” is my trigonometry. I choose to train that weakness because I want to share my actual gifts with the world. (Same as you might want to train your writing.)

I accept wholly that I will not have the business function of my brain be impeccable any more than I’ll have a mind for engineering. (Every time I take apart something and try to reconstruct it, there will be a non-functional lump with extra parts left over.)

If writing is your Trigonometry, it is likely the thing you can use to supplement your gifts, but isn’t gonna be the thing you lead with. And that is a good thing.

The culture we have in the West of “be the best at everything” not only doesn’t serve us, but it’s impossible to achieve

I think now more than ever, we’re seeing how this doesn’t work with the rise in awareness about neurodiversity.

We’re learning now (thanks in part to amazing humans like Perry Knoppert, who created The Octopus Movement) that ALL BRAINS work differently. All brains, particularly those of people who do not think linearly, have a unique function in the world, and celebrating that diversity is extremely aligned with Vedantic philosophy. We have a unique form, fit, and function. We are meant to be as we are. Going against that tires you out and makes you feel unworthy.


**2009, The Story of My High School and Mandatory Tutoring**

My brother was diagnosed with Autism 30 years ago. Back then, few people (on average) knew much about neurodiversity.

In 2009, when my brother was a senior in high school, my parents had to go to due process with the school district.

The short version is that at the time, my alma mater was one of the poorest-ranking schools state-wide in the state school assessment test. The district received much criticism and developed a curriculum to improve the scores. Basically, what they did was “teach the test.”

To boot, they required anyone who didn’t score above the basic level on the state school assessment to attend approximately 80 required hours of tutoring several days a week after school until 5:30 p.m. If students didn’t attend the tutoring, they could not graduate on stage with their class and would receive diplomas in the mail.

Well, my brother is neurodivergent. He not only had an individualized education program (IEP) since he entered school, which omitted some of the necessary curriculum to score above “basic” in some areas, but his brain simply… didn’t work that way.

He could have attended 6,000 hours of tutoring… he likely wouldn’t have scored above Basic.

So… my parents went to due process, and my brother did not have to attend the tutoring. He graduated on stage. Some of his classmates did not attend, and did not graduate on stage. 

I was angry about that for a long time.

I think this is truly where my hatred of standardized education began… Right there. Right there, in Old Forge, Pennsylvania.

**Form, fit, function**

I have a client who is like my high school “helped me with Trig” buddy in that she has a gift for numbers. Her brain works that way.

When she started to recognize that this was a gift she had and that not everyone has this gift, she began to recognize that other people have gifts, too. She began to see how the gifts of others complement her gifts.

For example, someone she works with has a tremendous gift of social intelligence. It comes naturally to that person, whereas my client has to work a little harder at it. She learned that passing off some tasks that have more to do with the social intelligence side of things was not “passing the buck” but rather empowering the other human to use their gift. It also frees up her energy to use her own gifts.

**Acknowledging your gift is not selfish. It is what you’re designed to do. Shining brightly in one area does not mean others are dim.**

What I have experienced from every human I have ever coached is the simple desire they have to be themselves. Then, a lot of our work is just erasing all of the garbage beliefs they have installed that keep them from being that.

Humans are not standard. They’re unique.

Competition culture is a mess, and what you were taught in standardized education just isn’t realistic. 

Who do you want to be? What do you want to see?

The great news is, that’s who you’re supposed to be. You fit, as you are.

Race your strengths.

**IT'S ALL MEANT FOR YOU**

In 2021 when I was traveling cross country, I drove up to El Santuario De Chimayó, which is about 30 minutes north of Santa Fe. It's this beautiful old shrine in the mountains which has been called "no doubt the most important Catholic pilgrimage center in the United States."

It's overwhelmingly quiet and peaceful, and there's this little room toward the back of the shrine with holy dirt that allegedly contains healing properties.

A couple months after my visit, I was on a coaching call with this man I met at random. He found me through the universe, and our talk was mostly about whether or not he should leave the educational institution he was highly involved in.

Of course, he already knew his answer, and it didn't take long before he realized that. Our call was meant to be an hour so we spent the latter half just shooting the shit, mostly about spirituality.

I told him about El Santuario De Chimayó, and I could feel his energy shift through my computer screen (not uncommon.)

I mentioned a woman I saw there who was just sobbing.

He said to me "because Andee, when you feel her, it's just pure mercy."

_Mercy._

**Before I go on, here's a definition: **compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm.​​

I hadn't felt that from "her" in that setting, and I realized quickly that it was because I'm not Catholic, or even Christian. I wasn't indoctrinated into the belief that there is a deity outside of myself.

I have felt her, however. I've felt her many times.

In the beginning, when I did, I was so overcome with self-love, it reached the point where I had trouble allowing it.

Like "how could something this good be for me, when I am such a piece of shit?"

I told this story to someone about my process of "getting it together" back in 2018. In a couple months I had let go of my 18-year smoking habit, my diet soda addiction, and by that point, lost maybe 30 pounds?

I remember running a sub-9 minute pace in a 10K (which at the time was lightening fast for me) and feeling that immense self-love and joy. I remember my mom, who I never believed was very proud of me, texting me at mile five saying "You're almost there!" and realizing I was so loved and supported.

I cried tears of love and gratitude.

And then I went to the bar with friends, drank for hours, and on my way to the train while trying to rush across the street to beat a taxi, tripped on the curb, bounced off the sidewalk, and got to observe myself lying broken, bloody, and dirty with a cheap medal around my neck.

Some fucking hero.

I couldn't, at that point, completely let in self love. I couldn't just allow myself to be great, to feel her. That light was always inside of me, but it felt like betrayal of an old lover to just allow myself to have it. It felt somehow "wrong," like it was too much.

It was too much because it was her. **As Ramana Maharshi says, "God, Guru, and Self are the same."
**
That's why my marathon mantra when it gets hard is "show me where the light is."

When you feel the light for the first time, you will not believe it is for you. You won't believe it is you. You will be embarrassed. You will be overcome by things you've said or believed, and you'll remember ways that you've minimized your great self for years.

And yet, the perception that anyone is a piece of shit, or that we individually or collectively have fucked something up is all ego speak.

For you to have a great life, you must allow it despite what your lower mind has to say about it.

I get to talking to people and they look at me and say "I know I'm meant to do great things," and then almost cower, thinking I'm going to judge them or say "that's ridiculous."

**No! It is ALL MEANT FOR YOU.**

Every time you say "people like me don't do things like that," or "I hate people like that because," that's just a hurt little voice inside of you who is trying to protect you.

But it's ALL meant for you. And that belief must come first. You didn't fuck anything up.

Pure mercy.

You can continue to punish yourself, say mean things, self-deprecate, or laugh inappropriately. I've certainly tried on those hats. I even built a brand around the knowing that people need to hear their identified separateness addressed before they'll give themselves permission to heal...

But in the end, you have to do it.

**LOVE COMES FROM A SPIGOT**

This year, I heard this wisdom from Townsend Wardlaw:

_“Money comes from a spigot.
Time comes from a bucket.”_

As I took it to mean, you may always make more money…. but you only get so much time.

As it is, I feel the same way about love.

Love comes from a spigot.

Do you know how it feels when someone actively chooses not to love you?

It’s awful.

“I actively choose not to love you, because love comes from a bucket. I only have so much.”

How ridiculous.

I hope people can stop that.

**HUMILITY IS HIGHLY SPIRITUAL**

Kabbalah 6 was one of my favorite classes because we went through the ten sefirot on the Tree of Life. It's phenomenally complimentary to my work and other things in my life past and present.

One of the things our instructor said in that class was that EGO is not just thinking you're better than someone, but also, that you're "not as good." What I loved about it was how negatively she painted that- to think that you're not as good.

This might be a bit advanced, but one of the ways I have navigated coaching MANY people who are far more successful than I am (traditional goal-line success) is to realize and understand that I am not the one who does it.

Attachment is having to "let everyone know it's you." And even if you are a person who doesn't have to verbally do this, you might mentally think "It's me."

One of the things I emphasize with clients who suffer in that place of imposter syndrome is "get yourself out of it." Can "little you" not be in the room? Can you detach completely?

Humility is highly spiritual, and it means "I’m just the channel, I’m not the source."

This week, I had a chat with a former client about something I allegedly did or said that I didn't remember, and I said "you know, I rarely remember what I say. I just know whatever it is is for you."

He later sent me this text-- I think it's from "The Artist's Way," but I could be mistaken.

I think it's beautifully complimentary to the greater conversation of "it isn't us." When you feel "less" and you don't use your gifts on loan from the Creator, that's ego. Ask yourself why. 

Can you allow magic to happen and understand you have nothing to do with it? Can you not want fame and greatness and RECOGNITION?

Because if you let go of that... you get to see what it's really about.


_Photo: mentioned text exchange with my client_

 ![IMG_1228.jpeg](https://books.andeescarantino.com/u/img_1228-olqey8.jpeg) 

**A STORY OF JOY IN LIFE AND LOVE**

Yesterday I wrote a letter to a friend of mine in my journal. I'll never send it as it was really just for me, but I re-read it this morning to revisit whatever semblance of human I was embodying at the time, and I came upon this paragraph:

_"Sometimes I think of us running together down the beach on the sand without shoes. You're fast but I'm faster. I see us in my mind's eye laughing about something stupid. I see you trying to catch me but I haven't the foggiest idea what the vision means."_

Maybe in the moment, perhaps that was true that I didn't know what the vision meant. But today, I know perfectly well that what I wrote about was joy. ✨

I love the idea of running like some child on the wet sand next to the setting sun. I see it often in my mind.

In the summer months, I sit by the water and stare aimlessly most mornings. I wake up early to write and work, and once the sun has decided to take its rightful place in the sky, I run, and then I sit. My mind becomes passive in the sun, and it begins to quiet. I wait all year for warm days.

Sometimes I dream of going to a place without seasons, and then I know how precious it is to be cold, to be fluffy, to hibernate and then to be born again.

I took a naked photo of myself yesterday and I find what I saw to be delightfully padded and beautiful. In three or four weeks that will all succumb to marathon training, and I'll become ravenous with a desire to tear apart the flesh of charred red meat in my teeth like the animal that I am.

I hate chicken, by the way. Always have. It took until my 30s before my mother believed me. There's chicken in my fridge right now. I can't explain the chicken, but when I was eating it the first time I felt it humorous enough to send her a text about it. I'll finish it but I'd rather throw it out.

Last year, I was high of the wave of summer sex and scent, connecting for the first time with someone new. It can almost become an addiction to crave newness, because the truth is, you only get that high wave once. Then, you get smaller waves. Some people don't love the smaller waves, they're not as exciting, but you can only build your boat when you're not being plummeted to the shore every other moment.

Joy for me is the beauty in a face you can look at for years, watching someone you met young sprout silver hairs. Watching someone walk their courageous path and standing there, bearing witness to it.

Do you ever think about the ocean, and how every drop of it has probably passed through a human urethra? I wonder when I run by the estuary just how many droplets have seen the inside of a human kidney.

When I think of joy, I think of music.

I love music, and I played for many years, until I knew I was not a musician, and that was possibly the first great loss of love I experienced as a young adult. I knew my path even though I couldn't conceptualize what it meant, and sometimes when there's deep love, we also know we aren't going that way.

I'm drinking drip coffee. I started this in the year I was so poor my mother was buying my toilet paper for me.

Before, like the New York City hedonist I had been, five dollar coffees from mediocre beans were a common expense, usually consumed rapidly to quell the effects of my booming hangover. I begrudged giving them up, but now, I look forward to the act of brewing my own coffee, even though I can certainly afford to not. I sit and drink it and honor the pain in my arthritic right thumb from all the years I poured liquor.

Do you like mangoes?

I love to eat food. It does not escape me that I might not be able to enjoy all foods forever, whether because I won't be able to chew them, or digest them. I love to hear the elaborate conversations humans make to decorate our act of sustaining ourselves. I love fanciful meals. I also can just as well eat a bowl of beans.

Do you understand, my friend, what I'm writing about?

I have not been explicit. I love to be alive, in love, in joy, here and now.

And that's how it is meant to be, for us to dance together, not rushing off to an endpoint, but in wonder, curiosity, and bliss.

We're not meant to be in this revved up engine always always. It's a dance. Will you dance with me? Chase me down the beach with bare feet on the wet sand, laughing about something stupid.

And after I'll probably want some french fries.

I can't see a greater point to life than that.

**CONTINUING THE EXPLORATION**

**Connect with Me:**

Currently I write a publication on Substack called _View From the Roof_. It is centered around the "spiritual shit" of our everyday lives.

Read it and subscribe at: [viewfromtheroof.substack.com](https://viewfromtheroof.substack.com/)

If you'd like to read the second book in this series, you can buy the next book in the series, _LOVE,_  on Amazon here.

(https://a.co/d/j0Qt8rP)

If you want to connect with me one-on-one, fill out [this form](https://forms.gle/hw22pjihKFytfUXWA) and I'll be in touch soon.