I just realized that this is the 23^rd Episode on June 23, 2023! Love synchronicity in numbers like that. I definitely did not plan and had to double check that was right when I was writing it down.

This was a big week, a lot of events.

June 21^st was the fourth annual Bleace Day. And I have to say it was the best one we have ever had. I can’t express enough how much that meant to me.

Not only from the first time stepping into Decentraland in October, 2021 to now. But going further back. And I want to go back one step at a time here to show how long it’s been before something like that.

June 21^st, 2019. The day I self-published my first novel. That year I also did an update to my website. Made the change from Woo commerce to Shopify and had to build the entire website from scratch, something that wasn’t expected but my old website was built on a bunch of coding that I didn’t understand nor did I really have the time.

Yet it was having that first website I had at the time that I learned just how much work it was and how it was constantly needing to be updated and changed. I needed something that I could update and change myself, as well as connect to other websites more seamlessly and Shopify had that. Not an Ad! But it’s just the truth of how I looked at it.

The point is to say that everything becomes a learning experience. Constantly learning and sometimes those lessons take years, not just in one classroom sitting, or one semester. Trying to cram cram cram, another exam, better cram it all in, another test, better do your best.

But we can’t all be at our best all of the time. We can set our intentions the best we can, and still life is going to constantly be testing, constantly, every single day there will be a test, from the moment you wake up to the second you fall

I think of film Avatar when he goes to sleep in the world, he comes back in another dimension of space and time, as a different Avatar.

 

Everyday at 1:23

My daily gratitude alarm goes off

I not only take this time to remind myself thatI have to take a step back

It’s more than just saying your grateful for this or that

And each day I try to be really specific

I am very mindful of who I am talking to, who I am around when that alarm goes off.

And as I have done this for the past couple of years now. I would have to look back and see exactly when I started doing it, think it was early 2021, February or March. It was after my heart surgery and when I was going back to work, having severe panic attacks, couple steps away from a heart attack. Heart would be beating out of my chest, I would black out, once while driving down the highway. So I went to a therapist, I had talked to several before, throughout my life, and she recommended a list of videos and books, authors to me, and there was one in there that really stuck with me, Dr. Joan Rosenberg. It started from a video and then I looked up the person and found her book, 90 Seconds to a Life You Love, bought it immediately, received it a couple days later and dove in. 

I came across her story about someone setting this daily gratitude alarm at 1:23 every day. How that person would use that as a reminder to take a step back. It’s easy to get caught up going from one situation to another, one fire after another, get into a heated argument, anxiety about the future, depression from the past. This was a way of stopping the noise. Recognizing that we all have, what she says, are 7 difficult emotions that every being deals with in life, learn to ride the wave of emotions, let them course through you before saying anything! These unpleasant feelings are: Anger, Frustration, Helplessness, Sadness, Embarrassment, Shame, Vulnerability. 

So at this 1:23 Daily Gratitude Alarm.

I pause and take three deep breathes. In through the nose and out through the mouth. 

On the first release I say these words in my mind and sometimes out loud. Anger and Frustration. I let out those emotions, I recognize them, see their value to my life, I recognize why I biologically have them as they could save my life one day, but they do not control me, I have control over them.

Now, this is a practice. I can’t emphasize that enough. Every single day is a test, it’s never going to stop, it’s incessant, this is the way of gravity and energy, it cannot be created or destroyed only transformed. Ride that energy, feel it deeply and let it go. Hold on loosely. We aren’t here for a long time, so be here for a good time.

Realize how much of this life, how much around you, is simply made up. How much of it is an illusion created by another human. Are you going to let that illusion anger or frustrate you?

It’s a practice, every day, you don’t just do this once and say, why didn’t it work? Oh I tried that a few times and it didn’t work. It’s not a light switch that you can just turn on and leave on. The bulbs burn out, you have to change them, they get too hot and they pop, you have to give them a break from time to time, you have to care and tend to those lights and to those light bulbs.

Even if you were a computer, computers need rest too, they can’t be on all the time, or they too burn out quick and have to be replaced, they need software updates and anti-virus vaccines just like humans do.

It’s a practice like waking up every day is a practice, being conscious everyday is a practice, we grow tired of being conscious all the time so we distract it with various substances, doesn’t have to be drugs, images are substance, sound is a substance, always exceptions but for majority, including myself, that’s true. Incessant explorers. Why else would anyone want to take an unregistered submarine to see a shipwreck? 

Back to the Daily Gratitude Alarm, when this goes off, I take 3 deep breathes, now on the second release, I saw the words, helplessness and sadness. I let them go, I get their weight off my shoulders. I don’t let sadness washover me, take me out to sea where I have no control over the tide. I swim to shore and watch the beautiful sunset relaxed on a picnic blanket drinking mead. Taking life one deep breathe at a time. with this surgery, with these head concussions, I feel I have died multiple times, gone to another reality for brief momentary glimpses, and have come back to the reality. Therefore, for a long time I have not feared death, have let that go too, I hold no fear of it, what will happen, will happen and couldn’t have happened any other way.

On the third deep breath after the alarm goes off, I say the words, Embarrasment, Shame, and Vulnerability.

I embrace vulnerability, I grow from it. I woke up today, with that simple act I am already more resilient than the day before, if I choose to see it.

Everything we perceive is a choice.

Can take the same picture of an object a billion different ways, what do you see won’t be what I see.

Where you see vulnerability, I see strength. Where you see sadness, I see the happiness that was once there and now you think that happiness is lost because that person is gone. Be grateful that it was. Be grateful that it happened. Be grateful that you’re still here, this beautiful individualistic energy.

What is your embarrassment? That sting. A false sense of self. It happened, so what, did you die? Did you do something that embarrassed not only yourself but someone else and now they won’t talk to you anymore? Fuck em, concentrate on the ones still with you, through the highs and the lows.

The lows, brings me back to 2009, when I first started on this Bleaceful Journey. This word, this one word that came to me in the middle of the night, hit me right in the core of my mind, I awoke and wrote it down on the first sheet a paper I could find, a small little yellow one. Bleace. What did it mean?

 

From 2009 to 2019. Obsessing over the word, pushing me to learn more about the universe and the world around me, this thirst for knowledge consumed me, and continues to this day.

Bleace. noun 

Potential energy stored inside the chemical makeup of every living creature in the universe, that, once recognized and harnessed, can be kinetically unleashed through passionately positive creative acts that do not directly or indirectly harm others. 

i.e. Writing, Photography, Painting, Directing, Acting, Designing, Cooking or being a Flaneur.

Ex. After the boy learned to harness his Bleace he was able to unleash it through writing.

In my mind, I had it going a certain way. I had a plan and the universe laughed. The universe has a plan too, one of pure chaos. The only constant is change. How we adapt to this incessant change is adapting and to adapt quickly takes practice, practice every single day. Will you mess up sure? Will you always be at your best? No. but you’re still here and that’s all that matters for your universe.

When I rose from that hospital bed, I knew I was forever changed, that I was going to carry this out if it were the last thing I do. I don’t care if I starve to death, I am not going to live in fear by working somewhere that I despise and I am just another pawn waiting to be replaced.

I feel I am here for a reason, that there is a reason this energy is coursing through me. That I have a voice and a message that I want to spend my days spreading and practicing, to make this a more emotionally intelligent place, one that can come up with more creative solutions to the problems that we face. To do that is going to take practice, every single day practicing, am I perfect? What is perfection? A state never reached. Do I make mistakes? Yes. Do I own them? Always. Judge me, that is your choice to make. I will carry on and continue to do so until my last breathe. I have set my intention and will continue to reset this intention every single day I awake. 

What I saw on this last Bleace day is a culmination of that practice. Handing out 100 different wearables to 100 different people from around the world, was truly special. To see the energy I have put out resonate with others in countries I have never been to before, has really blown me away.

What happened on Wednesday, felt like it was 14 years in the making. I truly didn’t want it to end. I soaked in every second of that moment. I was truly emotional at the end of that 12 hour Live stream. It meant so much to me to see everyone not only come out, but wear my first-ever wearable that I published.

For those that don’t know and I didn’t really promote this event to my Facebook fam or on Instagram too much as this event is something new, something I had been posting about for 2 years and no one has really cared about it, so I just left it alone and focused on the ones who are in this new virtual space with me.

I am someone who has designed fashion for my own photo and video shoots. I really like designing women’s work out clothes, like leggings and yoga mats, crop tops, bikinis, sports bras etc. as such I have been very fascinated by Digital Fashion.

What makes this new virtual space, this spatial computing, so interesting, the presence you feel with others and one of the main aspects of that is the variations in fashion that people use to express their own individuality.

So in that creative spirit and having such a deep veneration for the universe I try to do something new on every Bleace Day. For example, last year I put out my first poetry album and audiobook. The year before that I tried to publish the sequel, Bleace Paradox on the same day, but a global pandemic kind of pushed everything back.

After almost 2 years in Decentraland, I finally published my first wearable made in collaboration with the DCL Babydolls and founder Tangpoko, who is the first official Super Model of the Metaverse.

For the launch of this wearable, we had a huge party at the Dollhouse in Decentraland. They have had a party every Wednesday for over a year, every week having a virtual concert where people from all over the world show up to watch the Live Stream of a musician, which for WAGMI Bleace it was nonother than Shark Anthony, who did an awesome live performance singing to beats he produced, was really special time.

In these virtual spaces there is a sense of presence with others that has been lost on the 2-dimensional timeline on social media. The key to this presence is the ability for self-expression through wearables.

For my first wearable I created a new MetaParty Vibes color scheme for Summer 2023. Like all Bleace Apparel, these wearables are about Daring to Stand Out, being seen for your beautifully unique energy that every single individual is! We Curate Trippy Vibes for life is but a MetaParty and Your Vibe Attracts Your Tribe!

The Metaverse is whatever you bring to it and I am so grateful that I have gotten this far in this space and for taking yet another indefatigable step along this storied journey in Web 3. 

I just want to express my sincerest gratitude to everyone who helped make that day what it was, Tangpoko for putting it all together and bringing this idea to life. I am thankful for the surprise at the party, seeing the Bleace Fade Away Bunnies that our friend Nyankee made. I always write a blog post for the podcast episodes on Bleace.com and will put pictures and videos of the event up there, so please go check it out.

I will expand on this concept in more detail and in further blogs and Live Streams, if you have any questions about this wearable or the metaverse in general, please do not hesitate to reach out on any platform. Bleace NFT on All Socials.

Friendly Reminder, that it’s free to support artists, a like, comment or a share goes a long way. Let’s Go Further Together!