Boxed Destiny

*Intro*

Phoenix: Hey, Y’all. We in 2021, welcome to the new season of Life As P… I’m your host Phoenix Ash. They call me P, although, you know what, some people on Twitter have taken a calling me Ash recently, which is hilarious to me because it’s no relation to my name, but whatever. I love that people have decided that they’re going to nickname me because that means they love me.

At least in my mind that’s what it means. But anyway, welcome. It’s been a freaking doozy of a year. Hasn’t it? Last year was just off the hook. This year started off so crazy. Yo, we are living in a time, yo. You know people are like, I wonder what it’s going to seem like when our grandkids and so forth are reading our history and they’re reading these books and it’s sad to me that in my mind, I’m like…pfft… if it gets documented correctly. Because I know it depends on who’s documenting it, what it looked like, what it reads like and what we take from it. So guys, if you, you know, have your personal experiences and your stories and stuff like that, write it down, write down what you’re going through at this time journal something so that you could pass on to your children and tell them what it was really like for you.

Or, you know what I’m saying? Like what things were really like. So I’m still on this reflection of everything. Thinking about everything. How does one thing relate to the other? Because my mind is in 10 different places and I struggle with trying to get it in one place, but I still listen to the universe and I’m still listening to God and listening to what messages float around me.

And trying to pick up what the pattern is so that I can apply it for the way that my mind works. I need to recognize the pattern in the message so that I know that the message is for me. Something that speaks to me over and over and over again. I know that the message is for me and the message that I’ve been receiving lately is regarding your destiny or your future in a box.

And of course, because I am newly single, divorce has been final, getting out there dating and I mean, as best as I can in COVID right. Like it ain’t no thrill, it’s crazy. But I feel like in the dating world, as well as the work world, career world, writing, podcasting, all of that, I feel like in general, our anxieties as creatives or entrepreneurs or people just pursuing anything.

There’s an anxiousness about trying to predict what things will turn into or predict what the impact something has going forward. Or like when we get a new job opportunity, Oh, this is going to change. My life is going to put me into a new financial bracket and I’m going to be able to do X, Y, and Z. And then we get hit with taxes and we’re like, Oh, well, maybe not the Z, maybe we could do X and Y, but we can’t do Z or something like that. I think I told you that I took a job with a sponsor and I just was… the first week or two first month or two. I was just like, what in the entire hell? But I had gotten a sign-on bonus. So it was just like, aw man, I was stuck. So I stayed, but I didn’t know what it was going to turn into.

And, and luckily, you know, I stuck with it and I was able to navigate through the company a little bit, but at least for me. And I don’t know if you’re struggling with the same thing, but having to tell myself not to always try to predict what everything means. I’m taking on this new opportunity. This is going to do X, Y, and Z for me.

Or I wrote this book and this book is incredible and the series is incredible… Savage Fever’s my baby. Y’all know. And in my mind, the numbers that I was going to do is way better than the numbers that it’s doing. However, I’m good with it because I’m very proud of the work. And I feel like over time when people pick it up and people read it that they’re going to be like, wait, this was some dope shit.

So I’m not really stressed about it, but that project has taught me to not be stressed about it because I’m still managing that quote unquote flaw of mine, of trying to predict how things are going to do and what they’re going to do for me. One of the reasons why I need to fall back from all of that is because I truthfully don’t know.

I know what my intention is for it. I can say, this is what I want it to do for me. This is what I intend for it to do for me, but I don’t know. And sometimes it’s not even that you’re wrong sometimes it’s that your timing is off. You think it’s going to do X, Y, and Z for you within three months, but it takes three years.

And so like three years later, you getting everything you was gunning for, but it had to take its time. It had to marinate. So. I have to slow myself down in terms of thinking that everything’s going to be tied up in his box. And of course, like I said, I’m comparing it to dating and stuff like that. It’s like, you know, I meet someone who.

For instance, I’m learning that I like romance. I didn’t always know. I like romance sounds stupid. I know. How do you not know you like romance? You are a writer, you have romance in some of your books. Well, you know, writing it in some of my books started to open me up to, you know, what, I kind of liked this.

I kind of like dreaming about this. I kinda like fantasizing about this stuff. And now I’m at the point where I’m kinda like, Hmm, I’d like it in my real life. Different aspects of what I really wanted in my life I’m bumping into. And I totally believe is because it’s on my mind that I’m getting clear of what it is that I think I would like or how I would like to live or what kind of person I would like to be with.

Because I… I do eventually want to be with someone I’m not on this “I’m divorced. I’m being single for the rest of my life. I ain’t never doing that again.” I’m not pressed to get married again, but I’m not closed off to it. So I do like having regular companionship. I am a fan of that. And help… Cause life is just really hard by yourself.

I know everybody’s freaking superhero and they could do it all by themselves and they don’t need, they don’t need, they don’t need, I would like a partner. I’m not even going to pretend and act like I’m not hard. When I compare it. And I think about, I love the fact that there are some men who are really good with their hands and can fix stuff around the house and can change light fixtures and install alarms.

And if, uh, I don’t know, part of the wood floor comes up. They can easily tackle that. I love that. For years for me, it wasn’t necessarily like if you knew who to call, that’s fine. It’s probably still fine with me. Like if you know who to call. But I like men who are good with their hands. So I’m meeting people who are good with their hands, or I’m not the biggest fan of cooking.

I know y’all about to take my woman card and all of that, but cooking doesn’t do it for me every once in a while I get a good feeling from cooking and that’s what I want to do it. I cook because I want my daughter to eat real food. Not because I enjoy it. So I definitely am attracted to the cooking feature, right?

Like a man who can cook or doesn’t mind that I don’t, you know, I mean … but preferably a man who could cook. Cause I don’t want to eat out all the time because it’s not healthy. So I would prefer a man who, you know, doesn’t mind getting up in the kitchen and recognizing that I ain’t trying to do it.

And want to keep us healthy. I’m learning that, you know, that’s, that’s kinda important to me. I’m learning that. I think I always kinda knew I liked height and beard and all of that, but like who doesn’t? I’m just learning the different things. But also that I have to relax because each person that I meet or that I talk to, or someone that I’m spending a lot of time with talking to, I have to relax and not try to figure out if this is future Bay. If this is, is this, my next husband, is this, my next serious relationship is so I’ve like told myself, like, look, you’re dating dates. Okay. Enjoy the field. I know it’s stressful sometimes, but…

Try to enjoy the fields because I’ve already learned the lesson of settling down, when you have not figured out how your scale is weighted. The things that I was not a fan of were very heavy. And the part of me that was hungry is what my ex spoke to, and that’s what I went with. But I didn’t realize the parts that I wasn’t a fan of were heavy and there was more of that then there was once I stopped being hungry, once I was comfortable and what the situation was, and I wasn’t starving for that portion to be fed, then the other stuff matters. And so I need to be very careful not to get caught up in a situation where someone speaks to one part of me. And it’s the same thing with career.

I believe you’ve been aspiring to be a person in film or aspiring to be a principal or whatever. And we get offered these opportunities that speak to our hungry parts. We believe that this thing that’s talking to this one part of us, this one hungry part is going to change our life for the better, for every part of us.

And that’s not necessarily the case. Sometimes you get opportunities that aren’t the best for you, just because they’re not good for you. Doesn’t mean they’re not going to show up. They’re going to show up because you have free will. You’re going to be able to choose the, now this is not to say that you can’t overcome stuff, but if you’re somebody who gets down and depressed over every bad decision or everything that doesn’t work out, you probably shouldn’t take your time.

Now me I’m speedy Gonzalez. I jump out the window for everything real fast. I’ll be like, Oh my God, I’m so hype about every opportunity. Everything is celebrated, right? And the reason why that probably won’t change so much about me is because I bounce back very easily. I move on very quickly. I accept that things, everything isn’t for me, even though it showed up.

So, but still at the same time, I do want to think clearly I do want to see forward a little bit better. And what I’ve learned is that. I can easily get caught up when you speak to one particular part of me. And I’ve learned enough to know that after that hunger has fed all that other stuff that’s around it matters.

Now I’m not saying that you need to have a perfect opportunity to get your investment or that dream job, or even that dream relationship. I’m not saying that it has to be perfect. There’s flaws in everything is everything has something you don’t like. Otherwise it just be a replica yourself and hell…If we’re really honest, we all have stuff about ourselves that we don’t like. So there’s always is going to be something that is not perfectly aligned. And you have to figure out whether that’s the deal breaker for you or not. Whether that’s going to be the thing that unravels the entire string later down the line.

It’s very hard sometimes to see that. But if you get an inkling that that’s what can happen, you need to pay attention. Because everything is not going to be tied up in this beautiful box. Some things spill out the sides, some things are outside the box and you have to pick them up and put them into the box.

Everything is not going to just be wrapped up in a bow and handed to you the perfect way that you want. You have these preferences, you have this ideal situation and you want to get as close to it as possible. But you definitely want to make sure that whatever it is that you are being presented with, isn’t talking to just this one little piece of you.

That’s hard, I’m struggling because I can get blinded so quickly. Like as much as I’ve realized that I love romance. If you going to be romantic and dote on me and tell me how wonderful and special I am and how beautiful and how you wouldn’t change a thing about me and all that stuff. I’m liable to marry you tomorrow because that’s the part of me that was starving.

That was starving, but you know, I have to pay attention to finances. How you manage your money? What is your credit look like? What are your plans for the future? Do you invest? Do you, are you thinking of buying a business? Will you ever run a business? What industry do you work in? How do you manage, how do you handle stress?

How do you confide in your partner? Do you confide in your partner? How are you as a parent? Do you think you’ll be a step parent? How are you with your own kids? How often do you see your kids? What do your kids feel about you? It’s a lot of things that needs to be measured, but again, if you speak to this one little piece of me, it’s very easy for me to get caught up very easy, or I’ve met people who have the same interests I do. Like, you know, you’re a writer or you’re in a film or you’re into books or whatever, and we can talk about that stuff all day. And it’s great. And it’s exhilarating conversation and it’s so stimulating. It’s just wonderful, but you’re not a romantic, but you know, what, if I don’t pay attention to the fact that romance, isn’t your thing, or that you’ve been doing this forever, but you still are living at home with your mom because you can’t get your finances together. If I just focus on the one part of “that’s hungry, that hasn’t been fed” it very easily, I can get wrapped up. And then when my head finally makes it out the cloud, I’m like oh crap, how I got here.

It seems so easy to be like, well, then at that point you need to sever the tie and you need to go on. It’s not so easy for me. One I’m loyal to a fault. If I’m with you, I’m with you, I’m sticking with you. I’m trying everything to make it work. I’m loyal to a fault. So I know that when I have something set in my mind and I’m committed to something set in my mind, like it’s very difficult to get me to change gears, change direction, or even change the vision.

Very difficult . I could know that I really don’t belong here. And it will take me a very long time to get up and go. But I know that about myself. And so, because I know that about myself, it’s like, well, you know what? Then if you’re not going to be more careful, if you’re not going to be more of an advocate for yourself to separate yourself from situations, you know, are not healthy, then that means upfront.

You need to pay more attention to how healthy the situation is before you enter it. By the time I get into a serious relationship, I’ll probably be in love. Like I probably need to fall in love before I commit. I think that might be what works for me, but either way, this is what I’m saying is that I know that I get caught up.

And I think that this is the box right here. This is the box you’re speaking to this right here. And. This is destiny in a box. You are meant to be my future, and that’s not necessarily the case. Sometimes people come and see your life to show you what it is that you need, or to show you what it is that you should set as a standard for yourself, or just to make you feel love for a little while, and for you to reciprocate the same.

My biggest thing is there are people who I’m meeting, who are very sweet to me. Very good to me. And some people who are not, and some people who I speak to sporadically or whatever, whether it be business relationship, but I don’t want to hurt anyone. I don’t want to be the person that you hook up with a business situation and I dropped the ball. I don’t want to be the name that you refer and I’m showing my ass because I’m cussing somebody out or, you know what I’m saying? I’m moving funny. I’m being unreliable. I’m not showing up when I’m supposed to. I don’t want to be that person. So when I’m presented with an opportunity, I need to like really think about what it is that I’m about to enter.

There’s a, a woman who I love dearly. She’s a friend of our families and she runs her own business. And during my times of unemployment or when I just need extra money, I’ve done a lot of work with, and for her. But there was a time when she was issuing me projects and I did not have the time to complete them the way that they needed to be completed.

I didn’t have the patience and, and I probably wasn’t charging the right amount in order to do it. So that was a little frustrating too, but the embarrassment that I would feel when I would take one of these projects only to at the last minute realized, like, I just can’t complete it. I cannot do it. And last minute for me still gives you time to find somebody else to do it.

But for me, it was last minute because I was overwhelmed when I accepted this shit and I shouldn’t have accepted it. But because I’m trying to show up for you. And I’m trying to say this opportunity is going to do blah, blah, blah, but you know what? The opportunity couldn’t do all those things for me because I couldn’t fulfill it.

I couldn’t come through. So there’s always different pieces, different parts of what may or may not work. And sometimes yes it is. Sometimes you do get it in the bow sometimes. Yes. This is the opportunity that’s going to quote unquote, change your life. But I don’t necessarily feel like one opportunity does that.

I feel like all the prep work you’ve done before you get to the opportunity is part of you slowly but surely changing your life. All of that stuff is the catalyst. Opportunity itself is just the turning point where you actually make it around the corner, but you’ve been walking up the block. You know what I’m saying?

So I know my analogies, it makes sense to me. Okay.

Destiny doesn’t necessarily come in a little gift box under our Christmas tree. Okay. Sometimes it’s a little piece together thing. Sometimes it’s not the opportunity we thought. Sometimes the opportunity we thought was going to be the destiny is just a stepping stone to get to it. And it’s okay. We don’t have to predict, we don’t have to determine that every single move we make it.

And what I know that there are businesses built on strategy. I know, I know there are consultants who make a living on strategy and that’s great, but they fail sometimes too. You watch the weather, right? They’re not always right. Sometimes they say rain and they couldn’t call it. Right. It looked like rain.

It almost rained, but it didn’t, there’s some things that you not going to be able to call it and it’s okay. It’s okay. So if you’re anything like me, you can follow. What I’m saying is I know I need to remove some of the stress of trying to predict everything’s impact or what everything is in my life. Oh, I met you.

What’s the reason I met you. What can you do? No. For me, I need to live in the moment. I’m gonna put my best foot forward. I know what my intentions are, and I’m going to try to move towards my intentions, but I need to be more flexible because if it doesn’t work, I need to not change up my whole system.

That’s the thing I used to work for. This woman love her daily, but the most stressful part about working for her is that when someone made a mistake or someone missed something, there was an error. She liked changed the whole process. This can never happen again. I’m going to change the whole process. I have a girlfriend who was like that with dating too.

You stepped on the wrong toe. Nope. Not even going to date. They just changed the entire process when it’s just. All right. The process isn’t necessarily broken. It’s a process. Some things don’t come out of it. Some things need to stay in it. It’s a process, but like, it wouldn’t even be a pattern of failures or wouldn’t even be.

Something that was happening consistently. It could be an anomaly and she would just change the whole system. And that thing was stressful. And I think is the prediction of how this is going to impact and what this means. And it was just too much pressure on this one variable. And that’s why I’m saying like when there’s one hungry, part of me, as someone speaking to that one hungry part of me that I need to be careful not to shut down the entire system of process.

Because that one thing is fed. It’s kind of like the opposite or whatever. The anomaly I’ve never had anyone in my life be romancing towards me. So you must be my entire future. I’m going to shut down my process of evaluation. I’m going to shut down my process of dating. I’m going to shut down everything because you are the anomalies.

So you must be, this must be the thing that I’m supposed to focus on. Nah. I’m teaching myself who Lauren, take your times that back, look at the entire field, decide what you want. You don’t owe anybody, anything just like they don’t owe you anything. So take your time. Destiny is not going to come in a pretty box.

Okay. You build your destiny piece by piece. And sometimes everything doesn’t come all from the same market. You get, you go to the store here, you go to different places and you collect different things and eventually get to a place where you show up and you recognize that you’re living in your destiny, but it doesn’t, it’s not just handed to you.

At least for most of us, somebody, somebody somewhere out there is going to say, well, in such as such situation, it was. But you know, if you ever listened to those people, tell their stories and tell how they got to where it was. They’re like, you think I just got this because you just heard about me, but I’ve been putting in the work behind the scenes and doing this and doing that.

So. Were wrong. Even in thinking that someone else has received this beautiful gift and we’re looking for the gift that we believe somebody else has received, but you doing the work and you trucking your road. That is you developing the destiny. Okay. That’s you getting the gift wrap and the ribbon and all of that.

And you’re getting it from different places, you getting it from different places you’re the one who is filling the box. So, like I said, if you’re anything like me, I just want us to chill out on trying to predict everything and what everything means and the impact on everything and how this… all this is happening to me.

Cause I’m a horrible person, all this happening to me because I’m supposed to do X, Y, and Z. Yeah. Listen to the universe and see what your heart is leading you to do on what your mind and where you seem to gravitate and decide if that’s what you want. And if that’s what you want. That’s cool. And then understand that in the next moment, when things are looking, however they look in and you try to evaluate it to the end, there’s a next step available.

Take your time. Think about it. Yes. Okay. I’m going to take the next step. Or if you decide to change directions, that’s the thing too. That makes it so difficult for people to change directions because they think, Oh, I got this death, this thing, right. It came up in his boxes. So beautiful. I should want it.

I should want it. I’ve been wanting it my whole life. I should still want it. It’s okay If you don’t.Maybe you got all that you got out of that, and that was the point that you got to a certain place. Maybe that was the point that you got to a certain place. You got all the tools that you need to do something else.

I think basically I’m just saying just fucking relax.

Not even to y’all I’m telling myself like, yo, just chill. Yo, just bring it down a notch. Just chill. That’s my bottom line. Just show. All right. Y’all I’m off the soap box. Love y’all. If you want to check out my Savage fever series, I would absolutely love it. Book four just dropped. So, okay. It’s a series.

Savages, the family, they are off the hook. My girl dropped Savage is my favorite character that I’ve ever written. I just love her. I love Dash. I love Warren. I just love them all. So pick that up. It’s available on Kindle on Amazon. It’s Kindle unlimited as well as on Kindle books in a bit, I’m going to have the paperbacks available.

So look out for that. We’re approaching February. So if you’re all about the romance, like I’m starting to be my book delectable, a sweet romance is available on Amazon. It’s available on paperback as well as Kindle. So definitely pick it up. It’s a good, good read for Valentine’s day. If you want to Valentine’s they read that and got some kink to it though.

Hit up, touch me first. Touch me first is also available on paperback and on Amazon. And Ooh, it got some kink to a child. It might be good as a quarantine read any out. I think y’all so much. If you want to hit up my inbox, I’m at Pwrites on Instagram. I’m at Pwrites on Twitter. If you don’t like reckless tweets, do not follow me because I’ll be saying some stuff sometimes and be liking some stuff since I, but anyhow, I thank you for rocking with me.

Y’all stay true to me. And if I could do anything to help you or to help you figure out what not to stress about, hit me up. All right. And so the next time, when I can give you some power, because you definitely give me mine, PEACE!

*Outro*