Life is a complex mosaic of experiences, each one adding a unique tile to the grand picture of who we are. In my morning routine, I often consider the theme of “the good, the bad, the ugly, and the awesome.” As the host of the Own Your Awesome podcast, I’m Miranda Von Frickin, and today I’d like to delve into this theme to help us understand how to embrace our full range of experiences while preparing for a future brimming with possibility.
The Importance of Expanding Our Vessel
During my morning reflections, I read something profound about expanding our soul to make room for more light, spirituality, and good. This got me thinking: If we aren’t primed to receive the awesome, how can we hope to embrace it fully when it does arrive?
For instance, sometimes I refer to my brother Vinnie, who passed away six months ago, as still being in college—a cope-mechanism to shield myself from pain. We all tend to deploy such tactics to avoid dealing with our deeper pain, thus missing out on opportunities to heal and transform. This, in turn, limits our ability to receive the good and the awesome that life has to offer.
The Power of Self-Conversations
Often, as part of my car rides or morning rituals, I engage in self-reflective conversations to process my thoughts and emotions. This practice has become a vital part of internalizing and acting on the lessons I learn. Like a real-time journal, these dialogues allow me to pause, reflect, and prepare myself for all that I seek to achieve.
Aligning Daily Actions with Long-term Goals
For years, I dreamed of being both rich and buff—aspiring to financial abundance and a fit, healthy body. However, it’s crucial to question: What am I actually doing to prepare myself for this reality? Sure, I exercise and plan financial goals, but is that enough? Recently, I revisited my lottery episode and realized that despite my practical steps, I wasn’t thinking big enough.
A Harsh Realization: Am I Ready for the Awesome?
Even if I think I’m ready for fortune, the truth hits hard: God may be holding back the awesome because I’m not truly prepared to embrace it. I realized that merely eliminating debt and maintaining the status quo won’t cut it. Transformation requires that I live as if my dreams are already a reality, preparing my vessel to not just seek the awesome but to sustain and multiply it.
Fully Embracing Pain as Part of the Journey
Losses, like those of my brothers, remind me that pain is not a destination but a crucial part of the journey. Experiencing and learning from our lows prepares us to better handle future challenges and appreciate our highs. Without fully processing these lows, we miss out on the valuable lessons pain has to teach us about resilience and empathy.
Preparing for Tomorrow’s Awesome
As I’m living my best LinkedIn life and nurturing my personal brand, I acknowledge there’s more to do. Owning today’s awesome is great, but what about preparing for tomorrow’s? Are we truly ready to call in and maintain the wealth, health, relationships, and experiences we desire?
Mastering the art of living involves balancing today’s awesome with future ambitions, being prepared for the inevitable bad and ugly, and keeping our vessels expanded to embrace all of life’s potential blessings.
A Call to Action
As a takeaway, I challenge you, dear listeners and readers, to contemplate and prepare for the life you want, not just today but in the future. Feel the pain when it comes, learn from it, and let it refine your vessel to hold even more awesome. Let’s make a conscious effort to own our future awesome, setting ourselves up not just for survival but for extraordinary living.
Take some time each day to meditate, pray, or ground yourself in nature. Balance the good and the bad, while preparing your mind, body, and soul for the limitless possibilities that await.
Thank you for sharing this space with me. I hope my reflections serve as inspiration for you to explore and own every facet of your journey. Remember, the best is yet to come as long as we prepare ourselves to receive it.
Until next time, continue to own your awesome.
Transcript:
Miranda [00:00:00]:
Hello. Hello. And welcome to another episode of the own your awesome podcast. I’m your host, Miranda Von Frickin. Today is gonna be a little different because I don’t even know if I’m going to share this. I’m just going to speak from what’s on my mind, and I’ll pray on it. And if you’re listening to it, it means something told me to share this. And if you’re not listening to it, I never shared it.
Miranda [00:00:29]:
I have a feeling, though, I’ll be sharing it because I’m not one to shy away from expressing what I’m really feeling in the moment and sharing it in order to help somebody. So today, I’m doing I’m in the middle of my morning routine, and I often use this line, the good, the bad, the ugly, the awesome. Now y’all know awesome is my jam, so I’m not surprised that I add that in there because I love all things awesome. But I also know only loving the awesome isn’t realistic. There’s good. There’s bad. There’s ugly, and there’s awesome. And there is something I read in my morning routine about expanding our soul, expanding our vessel for the light, for God, for spirituality, for the good to come in, for the awesome.
Miranda [00:01:28]:
Right? But if we’re not expanded and prepared and primed to receive the awesome, we’re just not gonna receive it. And it made me think a lot to that lottery story that I shared a few episodes ago. It made me think about when I sometimes say my brother, Vinnie, who just passed 6 months ago, is still at college. I know he’s not at college, but it’s a defense mechanism that I sometimes use or say to myself. So I don’t feel the immense pain of him not being on earth. And, sometimes, I find myself, and I know I’m not alone, doing or saying or acting in certain ways to block out what I need to experience, what I need to go through, some of the pain that I’ve felt in the past, or that I currently feel about certain things, And I I don’t shove it down per se, but it but in a sense, I do. And I know other people who do this in my life, in my family, that we often would say we’re not dealing with these negative things on a deep enough level to truly heal it and transform it in order to receive the things we want in our life, not just things, but ways of being, higher levels of spirituality, higher levels of faith, higher levels of living. And so today and often when I, you know, I read a Bible verse or I’m reading my daily devotional or just having a conversation with God, I will pause if I learn something and get a little moment.
Miranda [00:03:20]:
I will pause and reflect on it right in the moment. I will have a conversation with myself often. This happens a lot in the car. And even if I’m with my daughter, I’ll be driving and my hands will start going. And she’ll say, talking to yourself, mom? And I say, yep. Because I just get in the zone, and I just start, like, having a conversation. And my hand will twitch or something because I speak a lot with my hands. And that’s what I’m doing.
Miranda [00:03:51]:
I’m having this in real time conversation with myself. And I found myself doing it just now and was called to record, not while I was having the experience because I wanted to kinda get through it on my own first, and then I wanted to share with you what it was like. So the thing I was reading was talking about being fully available for all the good, being the person that can hold all the good that I want in my life. I think I’ve said this in the past. The 2 things I’ve always wanted in life, like, even as a teenager, as a 20 something, is I wanted to be rich and buff. I want to have all the money and I want to have a svelte body. I don’t wanna be skinny. You’ll never it’s okay.
Miranda [00:04:43]:
I’ve embraced. That’s not a thing. And I don’t wanna be skinny. I want JLo body. Right? I want abs tightness at 50. Like, I want people to be, like, holy shit. Actually, I don’t care what people think. I care what I feel.
Miranda [00:04:56]:
Like, the body also means I wanna be healthy. I want all my systems working properly, but I often often will pray for that, or I’ll get in a season of really working out hard and fueling my body properly. The other thing I want is wealth. I want not just money in the bank or to be debt free. Yep. I want all that. But I want to feel generous, like, so genuous. Gen I can’t even say the word.
Miranda [00:05:26]:
You know where I’m getting at. So generous with my money that people are like, dude, like, you really give a lot. Like, yeah. Yes. Yes. I do. And I’m going to continue to give a lot. And oftentimes, I’ll give above and beyond.
Miranda [00:05:41]:
Like, in charity, I’ll give above and beyond for, like, my kids’ sports teams. They’re donating for the the coaches’ gifts. I’m giving a 100, not 25. Like, they asked for 40, I’m giving a 100. Like and it’s not because I’m like, oh, look at me. I have money. It’s because I want to be generous. I wanna say that word properly.
Miranda [00:06:01]:
Anyway, it’s early. But so the wealth part of me isn’t just for selfish reasons. It’s it’s very much so, so I can give, and just surprised. I’d love to surprise people. I just wanna be able to do that. It feels good in my heart, and I I love making people smile, whether it’s laughing or inspiring or giving gifts. Right? So money and and and health have always been my 2 biggest things. But what am I doing in my current life to prepare myself to be wealthy and healthy? Am I doing any of that? And, you know, often I have these moments and they’re so basic.
Miranda [00:06:48]:
It’s comical. It’s comical. And I I know, again, that I’m not alone in this. But this morning, I was writing down, like, preparing the vessel. Cool. What am I doing to prepare myself for a huge windfall of money as well as the abundant health that I’ve been seeking my whole life. And I went back to that lottery experience. It’s the 40 minute episode.
Miranda [00:07:13]:
If you missed it, I believe it’s the last one. And I’m I felt like I was fully prepared that morning to bring in the $1,000,000 or the close to $1,000,000 with that lottery ticket because I’ve I’ve been doing the work, right, for years, leaning into my faith, being generous. Yay. I said the word. And I’ve been, you know, thinking of others and being practical, and I would pay off debt, and I would help a few family members. And I would make sure that my kid had college money, and he was all set, and that my daughter had something set up, and that my husband and I had, you know, what we needed set up for our futures for retirement, and I was still doing the work. I still did my calls that day. And part of me was, like, that’s amazing.
Miranda [00:08:00]:
Look it. I’m not selfish. I I used to be nervous if I brought in 1,000,000 of dollars. Would I just go crazy and, like, buy my husband jokingly says if we win the lottery, he’s buying a tiger. We’re not buying a tiger, but, like, is are we gonna be, like, crazy with the money and then be those people that lose it all within, like, 6 months because we weren’t ready for it? We we weren’t the vessel that could handle that much money. I don’t wanna be that. I definitely don’t think that’s what we would have done. Unfortunately, I think we went the opposite direction.
Miranda [00:08:33]:
Even he and I sat down and talked about, listen. Money’s coming. I don’t know when or how, but it’s coming. I feel it. What are we gonna do? He, oddly enough, was a little more we than I was. I was very practical. I was like, I’m still taking my calls. I’m still, you know, signing clients.
Miranda [00:08:51]:
I’m still writing their LinkedIn content. I’m still x y zing. I’m paying off the debt, blah blah blah. We’re still only gonna have someone who cleans the house once a month or every other week. Like, I got very practical, and we ended up with a certain amount of the bank, and it was that was just it. And I felt really good about it. But now I’m thinking my vessel isn’t ready to handle the money that’s coming to me because my decisions, as smart as some of you may think they were and as I thought they were, it just wasn’t big enough. How am I gonna change the world or really make an impact if all I am doing is living the same life I am today with just less debt.
Miranda [00:09:34]:
Yes. I’d feel a little more free. I could create better content. I could probably, you know, feel more expressive in my podcast, but if nothing changes, then nothing really changes. So as I was having my moment today, I was like, shit. Of course, I didn’t win the friggin’ lottery because I’d still be sitting after all that money that God would bring to me to make some changes in the world or in my community. In the end, in my thought process, when I played it all out, every morning, I still get up and sit on my couch and do my morning routine on the same couch, you know, in the same vessel, wearing my same tatted up hoodie or, you know, ratted hoodie, whatever. Like so nothing really changed.
Miranda [00:10:21]:
So God was like, girl, you’re just not ready yet. It’s alright. You’re getting there. I like the practicality. It sounds really smart. You’ve got step 1 down. You didn’t go buy a tiger. Your first thought wasn’t like a big McMansion.
Miranda [00:10:35]:
I don’t really need a McMansion. Like, I just don’t. Like, that’s not who I am. But I wasn’t thinking I didn’t even think I would invest the money. It was just payoff debt, help some people, and have a little in the bank to breathe and to travel for AAU season. You know what I mean? Like, it it was it was so simple. So I realized I’m not ready and now I can appreciate what maybe is happening. So, when I said to myself, oh, like, I’m prepared for the good.
Miranda [00:11:10]:
I’d be okay and prepared for the bad. Like, if the furnace broke, I’d have a little money in the bank. I’ve already gone through the ugly a million times, so clearly, I’m I can handle the ugly. But could I? And was I prepared for the awesome? Holy crap. Mind blown. I didn’t really prepare myself and I’m not living as if the awesome is possible. Which is bonkers to me because my whole my whole premise in life, my brand, my mantra is own your awesome. And I do own my awesome, but I’m owning my awesome today, as it is today.
Miranda [00:11:55]:
Apparently, I’m not own and I’m literally thinking this out while I’m speaking to you. This is like journal. This is like a live action journal right here. I’m obviously not living I’m not owning my awesome that will be. Oh my god. I’m I’m gonna say that one more time because I I need to hear it, and maybe you do too. I may be owning my awesome for today, living my best LinkedIn life. My personal brand is on point, speaking at all the places, sending out all the Square invoices, and calling all the money in when it comes to business, but that’s just today.
Miranda [00:12:41]:
If I’m not owning my future awesome, if I’m not owning my awesome for tomorrow, is it ever gonna come? Is what I desire all of this wealth, and generosity, and ability, and freedom, and health, and buffness, if I’m not preparing myself today for tomorrow’s awesome. For tomorrow’s health, for tomorrow’s wealth. I don’t know, friends. I might have a lot more work to do than I thought, and this is a sobering sobering moment for me. And now I gotta go do some grounding. I I hope and I pray for myself as well as for you that you took something valuable from this episode because it ultimately is owning our future awesome. Because today listen. It starts with today, so I’m not wrong in that.
Miranda [00:13:43]:
I am very, very happy that I own my today’s awesome. Right? I own my awesome for today, But are we owning our future tomorrow’s awesome? Are we preparing who we are today? Mind, body, spirit, soul? Are we prepared to call in the awesome that the business, the relationships, the environments, the cars, the vacations? Are we prepared for when that does come? Are we prepared to keep it? Are we prepared to receive it, to enjoy it, to keep it, to not doubt it, and to not let it go away? That is what I will be working on this week, this month, this year. I will never call in that $1,000,000 if I don’t prepare myself to fully receive it and to keep it and to do something with it. Right? Not just keep it and put it in the bank, but have a real plan for when it comes in, whether I earn it or I win it and or whatever. However, it comes in. That’s not my that’s not my problem. It’s not for me to figure out. It’s coming in.
Miranda [00:14:58]:
Of course, business wise, I’ve got a plan. But if I’m not fully preparing myself or fully embraced and leaning in and embodying the process, then is it going to, a, actually come in, and, b, is it gonna stay in? Is it gonna keep flowing? Because after that million, it’s not like 1 and done. I want to call that in. After you get the perfect relationship, you meet your spouse of your dreams, it’s not 1 and done. You need to maintain it. Once you buy the perfect vehicle or the fantastic house, shit’s gonna go wrong. You’re gonna need a furnace. You’re gonna need new new windows, whatever.
Miranda [00:15:37]:
Like, you have to prepare for all of it, not just calling it in and checking the box. So when I say to myself after this awakening, the good, the bad, the ugly, the awesome, sure, that all happens. But, are we fully prepared to call in and keep the awesome? Are we fully prepared and ready to feel the bad, the ugly? Because that is actually a part of the awesome, feeling the ugly. And I started this with talking about my brother and how I may not be fully processing his loss, And I I did. I I I did to, like, probably, like, 85%. Right? Like, I’m not gonna break down and and just lose my shit this morning because I got stuff to do. But I I did, to an extent, feel it, but there is still a part of me that’s not fully comprehending the loss of him on this earth. I a, it could be because I’m very attached to the spiritual.
Miranda [00:16:54]:
I’m very aware of it. I’m very open. I know where he is. He’s actually with me here. He’s laughing at me sitting on the couch. I’m sure his energy is right here being like, sis, you are crazy, and I’m not I am boo. I’m I’m legit crazy, but thank you so much for being here talking to my brother. However, I can embrace that, but also mourn the loss of him on earth.
Miranda [00:17:18]:
And I think that’s one thing I realized that when I said to myself, you know, are my am I fully feeling the pain? Because the pain the feeling that part of the pain has power. So we can’t just trip over and skip the shit. You can’t skip the shit, people. You gotta sometimes roll around in it for a little bit because it’s gonna teach us something. It’s gonna teach us what we need to know about ourselves, what we need to do to prepare ourselves for the good and the awesome. It’s going to teach us what we need to know for when more ugly comes. Because just because I’ve had a lot of ugly and loss in my life doesn’t mean I’m done. And I learned that the hard way after losing my first brother.
Miranda [00:18:19]:
5 years later, I lost the second brother. In between, I thought for sure we were done. No effing way was my family going to experience anything greater than losing Jack. Nope. Nothing. We’re done. Like, we met our quota for shit. It’s not even possible that anything bad else could happen.
Miranda [00:18:44]:
I’ve got a lot of loss in my life, and I thought that was it. But then 5 years later, I lose Vinny, and we lose another brother. So, obviously, in my head, I’m thinking, let’s hope we’re done now. But I’m also thinking feeling and leaning into these losses, a) are preparing us for future losses, but are helping us to roll in it for a little bit and learn what we’re supposed to learn And then not staying too stuck in it that we don’t get out. We’re not supposed to, like, feel the pain and stay in the pain. We’re supposed to feel the pain, stay in it, the ugly, whatever it is, whether it’s loss or, you know, when I lost my jobs, you know, whatever. We’re supposed to feel it, learn the lesson. And I used to say bless and release, but sometimes it’s not as easy to just release.
Miranda [00:19:38]:
But we can be blessed in the pain by learning the lesson. What is this trying to teach me? Why is this a part of my story? What can I do with this to help others, to help myself? And that is what the good, the bad, the ugly, the awesome, I feel like is all about, preparing ourselves for the good and the awesome to be the vessel that holds the awesome. But at the same time, that duality of leaning into the pain and being open to feeling that just as much. So God willing, we are gonna have a long life, and we are gonna feel ups and downs. We’re gonna feel all of those things, good, bad, ugly, awesome. But are you preparing yourself to receive and call in? That’s awesome. Just as equally as you’re preparing yourself for or or feeling and leaning into when the bad happens. I think when we do that, that is when the awesome comes.
Miranda [00:20:47]:
That is when the light shines in. That is when, if we’re broken, it gives room for the light to come in and heal. If we don’t feel the brokenness, we’re never gonna feel the light. So this has definitely been an awesome experience for me, even though it is about a little bit about the pain. But it’s been awesome in the way that it has opened me up a little bit more to receive more of the light, more of God, more of the awesome. And that’s what this is all about. So friends, hopefully you received what I did in this live action journal and that you are taking time every day to sit with yourself, to sit with your thoughts, to pray, to meditate, whatever it is you need to do to go grounding, walking in nature, feet in the dirt, whatever you need to do to feel that balance, that duality between the pain and the perfect, the good and the bad, the ugly, and, of course, prepare yourself for the awesome. Thank you so much for listening.
Miranda [00:22:04]:
This has been this has been so great for me. I hope it has been great for you as well. And, shoot me a DM. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to rate and review my journal entry. And until next time, continue to own your awesome.
