The picture I did not send
Zenfull Heart | September 20, 2026
Yesterday after I left the market, I had to stop for gas, and I knew gas prices had gone up since the last time I filled up my SUV. When the total went over seventy dollars, my immediate reaction was, “Oh fuck, look at this.” In the seven years I have owned my SUV, I do not remember ever paying more than seventy to fill it and instantly I felt that old familiar place opening up. The fear around money, the frustration about prices, the thoughts about how expensive everything is and how people are supposed to afford anything anymore. I could have gone straight down that road because I knew it very well.
At the same time, I put my phone number into the gas pump to use the loyalty program and received five cents off every gallon. I used my credit card that gives me rewards back on gas, and I knew there was money in my bank account to pay that credit card when the bill came. Instead of only seeing a seventy-dollar gas tank, I started realizing how many other things were happening in that same moment that I could also choose to notice. I had the money to fill my vehicle. I received a discount. I received rewards. I could be angry about the price, or I could be grateful that I had what I needed.
My first instinct was to take a picture of the total and send it to a friend. I actually had the picture pulled up in the text thread ready to send, and I knew exactly where that conversation would go. We would talk about how expensive everything is, how prices keep going up, how wages are not keeping up, how nobody can afford anything anymore, and how ridiculous everything has become. Then I stopped and remembered the question I have written on my whiteboard at my pet sit house: “How do you want to feel today?” I looked at that picture sitting there waiting to be sent and thought, wait a second. I do not want to feel this way.
I did not want to spend the rest of the afternoon complaining about something I could not change. I did not want to activate my nervous system over the price of gas and then carry that frustration into everything else. I have worked way too damn hard over the past two years to regulate myself, find more peace, and become conscious of what I am feeding with my attention. So I did not send the picture, and as simple as that sounds, it felt like a really big realization for me.
For a lot of my life, there was always something available to complain about. Money, politics, traffic, work, relationships, friendships, people, survival, fear, weather or whatever else was happening. I understand where that version of me came from, and I am grateful for everything she survived and everything she taught me, but I do not want to live there anymore. What really struck me yesterday was realizing how easy it would have been to reach back for that old familiar feeling simply because it was familiar.
Earlier at the market, while I was giving my free hugs, two people had given me money. One person gave me a dollar and someone else gave me five. I am obviously not standing there giving hugs because I expect anybody to give me money, but I am also learning to be open to receiving, so I accepted it with love and gratitude. It was hot, I had forgotten my water, and there was fresh-squeezed lemonade at the market for ten dollars. I love lemonade, and normally I probably would have had a whole conversation in my head about whether I should spend ten dollars on one. Instead I thought, you received six dollars today, spend another four dollars and let yourself have the lemonade.
So I did. I let myself enjoy something that I wanted without turning it into another reason to worry about money, and later that afternoon something interesting happened. I received a phone call that appeared to be from Verizon Support about some type of loyalty benefit. I called Verizon back through their customer service number to ask about that. They said they had not called me. During that conversation, because of the spam call and because I was on hold for a long time before I got to speak with anyone, the representative offered me a ten-dollar credit on my account.
I immediately thought about the lemonade. I had allowed myself to spend ten dollars on something I enjoyed without guilt, fear, or overthinking it, and later ten dollars came back to me in a completely unrelated way. I am not saying that the universe reimbursed me for my lemonade or turning everything into some magical equation. What I noticed was the change happening inside of me. I was allowing myself to give, receive, spend, save, enjoy what I had, and be grateful instead of treating every dollar like evidence that something bad was going to happen.
Then this morning, everything seemed to come together. I spent five hours on Zoom listening to lectures and meditations with my Dr. Joe groups. During the first part of the morning, I was doing my normal routine, but listening through my headphones. Later, when I joined my regular ten o'clock group, everything was settled and I could go deep into meditation. At some point I either went somewhere into 5D or straight into sleepville.
Toward the end of the meditation, I heard questions about what I wanted to change, who I wanted to become, and what choices and behaviors I wanted to do differently. Immediately I was overjoyed about that picture of the gas pump sitting in my phone and I realized I had already made one of those choices. I had an opportunity to respond exactly the way the old version of me would have responded, and instead I chose differently.
I could have sent that picture and had a conversation about how shitty everything is, how expensive life has become, how nobody can afford anything, and everything else that comes with that story. We could have gone back and forth reinforcing the same feelings of lack, instability, fear, and frustration. For years conversations like that probably felt like connection because there is a certain familiarity in finding someone else who understands what you are upset about. But I am realizing that sometimes we are not actually connecting through those conversations, we are bonding through the same fears and insecurities.
That was one of the biggest realizations for me because I do not want fear, lack, complaining, or frustration to be what connects me to other people as much anymore. I do not need to go looking for an old familiar feeling just because I know how to live there. Familiar does not necessarily mean safe, healthy, peaceful, or where I belong now.
One of the lectures this morning also talked about how easily we recreate the same personal reality every day. We wake up thinking the same thoughts, reacting to the same things, having the same conversations, going through the same emotional patterns, and then wondering why tomorrow feels exactly like yesterday. That hit me because I have changed so much about my external life over these past two years, but the deeper work is changing the person who is actually experiencing that life. I can travel somewhere new, meet different people, change my routines, and create completely new experiences, but if I keep bringing the same fear and the same reactions with me, part of my old reality is still coming along for the ride.
Yesterday, change looked like a picture I did not send. I am recognizing that abundance does not always have to arrive as some enormous life-changing event. Sometimes it is simply becoming aware of everything that is already supporting me instead of constantly looking around for proof that I should be afraid.
Those old thoughts still show up because they have been practiced for a very long time, but they do not get to decide what happens next anymore. That is part of what changing MY life really looks like. You notice the familiar road, you realize where it leads, and instead of automatically following it, you remember to ask yourself, “How do I want to feel today?” Then you make your choice from there.
