CHAPTER 2 | PENDULUMS A Tale of Practical Reality Transurfing By Renee Garcia & Lucy Cultrera

Chapter 2: Pendulums. Out of the fire and into the furnace. Paris was spectacular, but boy oh boy, Did it come at a price? It nearly cost me my life, and I say that without a hint of hyperbole. Sam and I were living high on the hog. Nearly everyone we encountered thought our unlikely companionship was curious, if not fascinating. We'd promenade the streets of Paris with Sam treating me to expensive European clothing, shoes, handbags, and any other Parisian accoutrements a Central Valley girl like myself could dream up. We were limited only by imagination. In the evenings, we would return to the hotel exhausted and ready for our overpriced spa treatments. We dined at the Ritz almost every night, stuffing ourselves to the brim with caviar, oysters, and foie gras. I guzzled down fine champagne while Sam sipped his God knows how old scotch. Our nightly tab often exceeded €1,000. Our energetic resource tabs were racking up in the metaphysical sense, we just weren't aware of it yet. Here's the deal: we exchange some form of currency for absolutely everything in this world. We trade our hearts, our money, our time, our health, our sanity, our energy, We pay out these resources to pendulums in exchange for what we want and desire. Nothing in this life is free, and ultimately I paid to experience Paris. I paid for the indulgent ride on the gravy train. I got greedy, and pendulums foam at the mouth at the sight of greed. It was the same in my marriage. Now, I wasn't asking for much there, but the things I asked for, I wanted desperately. Shelter, someone to love me, and a place where I could self-medicate without being bothered. I was a beggar. By the time that relationship hit bottom, I had closed lots of self-sabotaging deals in which the Pendulums got the better end of the bargain. I sold out often, unable to see that eventually the principal would need to be repaid with interest. I was completely unaware of the metaphysical checks and balances ledger that exists behind the mere world. Amidst my despondent lows, I signed my name on the dotted line and forfeited every ounce of self-worth, physical health, and emotional energy for mere scraps. Alms for the poor. Nothing good had come from my marriage. I spent 5 years giving away nearly all my tangible and energetic possessions. I dipped into the red and then stayed put. When things inevitably imploded, I was financially depleted, physically wrecked, and dragging around a broken heart and body. Now, that was a pendulum that made out well at my expense. I was foolish when I was young, driven mostly by wanting to feel loved or safe. When my energy levels were up, I was out for good times, which pretty much equated to drugs, alcohol, and casual sex. I had pendulums cosigning my bullshit left and right and feeding the already elevated importance that I had placed on certain kinds of experiences and sensations. Were those experiences and sensations temporarily satisfying or fun? Hell yeah. Were they good for me? No. Did they bring me closer to my higher self? I'll let you be the judge of that. My marriage left me high and dry in a place of wanting even more desperately than before. Then, after the divorce, on top of the shelter and love I already desired, I wanted money and success, fun an adventure. Nothing ever satisfied me. I only wanted more. I told myself that I had been deprived and was making up for lost time, a theory which made me quite vulnerable to the pendulums in my life. I moved through my layer of reality donning my importance levels in full regalia. I needed my vices. I obsessed over having a good time., and I demanded love. My importance levels were through the fucking roof. I was a cherubic little morsel dangling from a shiny lure, just begging the pendulums in my world to snatch me up. I was pendulum food. And when I finally got a taste of the good life, it was like someone had thrown a match into a warehouse filled with fireworks. My life exploded. But finally getting those things I'd so desperately wanted felt damn good. For the first time, I felt special. I had private chauffeurs driving me around Paris, for crying out loud. We'd get dropped off at the most exclusive nightclubs in town and then return to the Ritz, where the staff had been prepped to escort us past lines of people to the best table in the house for a nightcap. Nights like that still registered as otherworldly to me. And even though I was highly conflicted, never quite settled, I'd tell myself, "This'll show them," whoever them was. I'd oscillate between feeling confident that I belonged in that first-class, 5-star world while feeling like a total fraud, completely out of her league, too scared to talk to anyone. So, like any 20-something hot mess, I'd lubricate the social life pendulum with beaucoup alcohol, all on Sam's dime. I turned it up a notch, and then another, and then another, to distract myself from my insecurities, emptiness, and epically low self-esteem. One night, Sam spent nearly €6,000 on alcohol at a club. The next morning, I woke up wishing I would have just died the night before. I would spend all day in bed with men I didn't know, smoking cigarettes and trying to recover by ordering expensive room service delectables. I tried to keep this a secret from Sam, but ultimately learned the hotel staff had been paid to report back to him my scandalous affairs. Then, every night like clockwork, I would somehow peel myself out of bed, dress myself up, and go do it all over again. The pendulums I was in business with were playing just the tune for me, a sexy, hypnotic, downtempo French beat. Ooh la la. Heaven turns to hell fast when you don't understand the alternative space ledger. Pendulums are literally everywhere, and one must learn to negotiate this space and the energetic transactions that occur there. Without any insight into how it all operates, pendulums will rip you to shreds, leaving you hungover and in the fetal position on the bathroom floor of a 5-star hotel, begging for someone to just make it stop already. I realize not everyone will relate to having experienced such extreme swings in their reality, but mine and Sam's time in Paris serves as such an excellent example of how pendulums can get the best of you. Our days were no doubt glamorous, and from the outside looking in, my life looked like a movie I'd buy a ticket to go see. But past a certain point, playing the role of a no-boundaries party girl felt like being on autopilot, like I was following some surreal script and I couldn't break free. The initially pleasant carousel was now spinning dangerously fast, and we were unknowingly picking up speed. Sam was blowing through extraordinary amounts of money. Our hotel rooms alone were astronomical. His was over €3,500 a night. Adding the shopping, the alcohol, the fancy meals, and you can imagine just how quickly the spending spiraled out of control. Sam and I were burning our candles at both ends. One night he goaded me into asking a new friend to get him coke. Which I did. I was in on it too this time, and now I was going for the big lines because what the hell, we were really living, right? Wrong. Down to the lower layers of reality we slipped. Sam developed serious bedsores from not taking care of himself and ended up being bedridden. I ate some raw oysters at Café de la Paix and ended up with a life-threatening case of hepatitis A. We had both lost our ability to function, but I somehow still had the wherewithal to get myself to a hospital where a well-meaning doctor prescribed me antibiotics. What she didn't realize was that between the hepatitis and the heavy drinking, my liver was almost non-functioning. The antibiotics tipped the scale. After 6 full days of battling 103-degree fever, I awoke in a delirium to the concerned and then panicked faces of hotel staff looming over me in bed. They called a doctor who showed up to my room toting a little black bag like in the olden days. I sat in an ice-cold bath while we waited for an ambulance to rush me to the American hospital in Paris. I was admitted for nearly 10 days, and when everything was said and done, Sam got slapped with a $40,000 hospital bill. Doesn't that sound like the climactic scene of a French movie? Sam had had enough. He finally woke up and realized how badly Paris was bleeding him dry. We were both drained, but unlike Sam, I had gotten there free of charge. The pendulum du mois had gotten the better of him. Despite our agreement, Sam had made passes at me on a few occasions. Once in his room, he asked if I would stay the night with him, and another time I was trying on dresses and he asked me to open the curtain naked. I declined both requests, and each time the tension and pressure between us escalated. For both Sam and I, the agreement was no longer satisfactory. I was quite literally dying, which meant Sam wasn't getting the care he ostensibly paid me to provide. After 3 months of this debauchery, we were French toast. I last saw Sam when he came to visit me in the hospital. He paid my bill in full and then left an envelope full of money for me at the front desk of the Ritz. When I picked it up, they told me he'd also paid for me to stay there 3 more nights alone. Sam was long gone, and I found out through the concierge. I had luckily made some friends in Paris, a couple of American girls and an Australian girl named Ingrid. Ingrid had just secured an apartment in the Bastille, and she offered me to take half of her small studio. I moved out of the Ritz and over to the small maid's unit that was about 300 square feet at the very top of the building. Maid's units are placed at the tippy top of old Parisian buildings. Think of them like the leftover scraps of living quarters, the spaces no one else wants but are considered adequate for service people. Right up my alley. From our window, we had picturesque views of French rooftops, chimneys, and could catch glimpses of Parisian domestic life unfolding. I continued to rock it pretty hard, blowing through the rest of the cash that Sam had given me in record time. Ingrid and I were a dynamic duo, spinning like pinwheels across Parisian nightclub dance floors with confetti raining down on us. One evening, we met a couple of Saudi princes who were looking to get lucky. This time, we were the pendulums catching unsuspecting men in our swing. We requested that they take us to an exclusive VIP club which we couldn't even get into on our own. They sped us through the streets of Paris in a brand new Porsche 911 Turbo while I sat in the back seat screaming to go faster. When we got to the club, I took in my surroundings and concluded that I had found the holy grail of nightclubs. Sitting down at our VIP table, an older gentleman with a bodyguard walked up to us with a few dozen roses in his arms. He handed both Ingrid and I a single long-stemmed red rose and walked away. As it turned out, the handsome fellow was Don Johnson. After drinking a few thousand dollars worth of booze, we walked the long red corridor towards the exit to make our way to another club. There was always the promise of another better party somewhere in the city. Suddenly, I was grabbed from behind at the waist just before we reached the door. Someone spun me around and pinned me to the wall. Then I was kissing this someone that I knew for certain wasn't one of the Saudis. I reared my head back. Hey, where do you think you're going? Don Johnson asked me in between our deep tongue exchanges. Once again, someone grabbed and spun me around. This time it was one of the Saudis. Dude, she didn't even know who you were until we told her, the Saudi said as he ushered me away from Don Johnson and out the front door. I remember Ingrid laughing hysterically. We arrived at the next club and excused ourselves after consuming more expensive alcohol that our host had once again paid for. We headed towards the restroom and then, checking over our shoulders, did a right-about-face and ran to the exit, ditching the Saudis and our half of the unspoken arrangement. Before she'd met up with me and my low moral standards, Ingrid had been a good Christian Brisbane girl. Years later, I'd realize just how much she had suffered right along with me and just how responsible I'd been for corrupting her limits. One morning, upon returning home from a particularly hard night at the clubs, Ingrid literally had to crawl the last 2 blocks to our apartment on her hands and knees. Those 2 blocks were the ones we walked frequently between a 24-hour pharmacy where I'd pick up my morning-after pills and our building. Ingrid caught pneumonia and was admitted the very next day to a hospital in Paris. I never saw her again in person. Another one bites the dust. My money was dwindling, and I knew my French was too poor for me to make a life for myself in Paris. Out of options, I surrendered the fight, booked a ticket to the States, and headed back with a morsel-sized plan of action. Let's pause and use our imaginations for a moment, shall we? Do you think there's a version of reality where things in Paris didn't play out so despicably? Duh. Is there a deal I could have made with the Paris Pendulum that would have benefited me more and taken less in exchange? Absolutely. Looking back, I can see my blind spots all too clearly. Here are a few of them. When we first arrived in Paris, Sam paid nearly $10,000 to a language school where he intended to learn business-level French. I joined him for exactly one week before quitting out of frustration. I became discouraged and immediately reverted to my old theories about myself, deciding that I just wasn't smart enough to learn a new language. I could have taken better care of Sam, or I at least could have made certain that he was taking care of himself and been more intentional about not adding fuel to the fire by getting him drugs and asking him to go out every night. This might sound a little bit shocking, but I think if I could go back in time, I would've just given him a little bit of the love he craved so badly. At that point, the pendulum of our dynamic was so out of whack that giving in Giving the Pendulum what it wanted probably would have kept things from blowing up so royally. Pendulums want what they want. You just get to decide how you react to them. You can 1) negotiate a good deal upfront, or pass if a deal is not met. You can 2) renegotiate when you see a deal losing balance. You can 3) give the Pendulum what it wants while maintaining awareness and keeping the exchange in mind, or you can 4) get ripped to shreds by an unbalanced deal. Those are your options. Simple as that. With some of the bigger Pendulums, like destructive habits, the media, social media, and even those faceless Pendulums like corporate America and culture, You may start out in the driver's seat. You have an opportunity to choose the extent to which you will adhere to the standards and rules of the Pendulums you encounter. Just be certain to make those calls with wise and sustained awareness. Choosing the extent of your engagement with your Pendulums is a decision you must make if you want to see a shift in your reality. I can't tell you the optimal amount of engagement per Pendulum because I am not convinced the same will be true for everyone, but it would do us all a hell of a lot of good to step back and get real about how we're faring in our energetic exchanges. Keeping your personal resources at a surplus will make you a more adept reality creator. On the flip side, depleted personal resources will keep you stuck and toiling amid the lower levels of reality, unable to discern why things aren't changing for you. Early on in my jewelry business days, I had made friends with an older man named Joe. He was clean after struggling through 20 years of heroin addiction. He used to come by my office and ask me to go smoke with him. Always when I did, we'd get to talking and he'd inevitably drop some wisdom bombs I didn't know I needed to hear. I liked Joe. He was living by his own rules and seemed to have wrangled his demons for the most part. One day while we were standing in front of my office building taking drags from our cigarettes, I asked him, "Hey Joe, how come you were able to kick heroin but you can't give up smoking?" He smiled, took a deep drag from his smoke, and said, "Some vices you can live with and some you can't." I will always remember that. When I'm considering renegotiating with the Pendulums in my life, I remind myself there will always be some I can transact with and some I can't. Imagine organizing your time, energy, and attention into a pie chart. What is getting the most from you? How are you paying? Are you paying with your heart, money, sanity, energy, time, or your health? Is it worth what you are receiving in turn? For a long time, I deeply benefited from my smoking habit. I used my cigarette breaks as moments for introspection, urban meditation, and oddly saw those moments as acts of self-care. Over time, my lungs got heavy, my hands stunk, and the guilt of my two-decade-long smoking habit set in. The smoking pendulum began taking more and more from me. I've since renegotiated the deal. I smoke a cigarette every month or two. I get the once-in-a-while sensual pleasure of an occasional cigarette, but the pendulum no longer owns my attention. Thought energy, money, or health. Back to what happened next. When I returned home to the States, I went straight to the property management company to retrieve the $7,000 overage Sam had paid in rent. And then, just as quickly, I moved in with Frank. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Frank was the pawn shop guy. I had taken up with him before leaving for Paris. Frank and I had kept in contact via email during my time in Paris. When he hadn't heard from me in nearly 2 weeks, he called the Ritz and got Sam on the phone, who relayed my hospitalization. Frank then began asking me to return to the US. He flew to Paris a few months into moving in with Ingrid and asked me to return with him. I played it cool at first, but as my money dwindled, so did my options again, so I agreed. I had a burning desire to learn more about the jewelry business, and I'm pretty sure Frank saw me as a needy workhorse. He was right to recognize that I had a strong work ethic, but in the end, I wound up exchanging much more than my time and grit to receive a higher education in the jewelry scene. I put up with a lot. Frank cheated on me constantly, talked down to me, and manipulated me into using my time and energy to no end. We closed deal after deal, and although I knew money was coming in, I wasn't seeing a single cent. But I was being compensated in other ways— in education. Retrospectively, I can see my crash course at the school of hard knocks was absolutely worth it. The jewelry world is tight-knit and hard to break into. Most businesses are family-run and handed down generationally. You need capital to buy so that you can sell, which means if you get even the littlest bit clumsy, you won't last long. Success in the jewelry business is entirely dependent on reputation, connections, and buying power. The more I came to understand the business, the more I came to realize I was indeed the one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest in this sector of reality, at least. I needed capital. Frank helped me with the connections and learning the art of the deal. And the rest of it, well, that's a juicy part of the story that's coming up shortly. To this day, I can honestly say I'm happy I hung in there. Frank and I are still friends. I love him like a brother. He put me through absolute hell during the years we were involved romantically and as business partners. But in hindsight, I see that he also gave me something I needed desperately: the opportunity to thrive while doing something I loved—trading jewelry. At 27, I finally broke away from the Frank pendulum and out onto my own. I built a name for myself in the business and became a trusted and noteworthy jewelry dealer in Los Angeles. The problem was that I still had very little money. I got caught up in a cycle of going to trade shows in Miami, Vegas, and New York, buying upwards of $100,000 in inventory on 30 days credit, and then going into absolute beast mode trying to get it all sold before the credit timer dinged. During that time, I read The 48 Laws of Power and clutched at Law Number 5, which states: So much depends on reputation. Guard it with your life. I made mistakes, but I never forgot Law Number 5. I made good on every single check I ever wrote, and to this day, nearly 2 decades in, not a single person in the jewelry world would be justified in speaking ill about my business conduct. I was impeccable in my dealings. I was defying the odds. But there was still the capital dilemma. I wanted to succeed, and I knew that if I didn't begin raising this much-needed capital, I would continue just getting by but never really getting ahead. I concluded that if I was going to climb to a higher level and achieve success, I'd have to get creative. So I made a deal with my own morality and risked the very reputation I had worked so hard to build. By then, I was 30 years old and I knew when it was time to make a move. So I power punched my reality and created for myself another crack in the matrix. I was going to need to break some rules though. On Thursday nights, the Spearmint Rhino Gentleman's Club held open auditions. I had seen this on the sign out front and felt something that was hard for me to discount after a period of time. It was calling me. I told my flamboyant neighbor about my plan to try my hand at exotic dancing, and he clapped his hands together with total elation, jumping up and down. I was terrified, but his excitement helped me put one foot in front of the other. "Oh girl, we need to get you some gear." This was his dream come true. "Do you think I'll make a fool of myself?" I asked. Hell no, girl, you'll whip into shape in no time. I'll show you some moves after we get your gear. And with that, we headed to Hollywood Boulevard, where I bought my first pair of 8-inch red stiletto heels, some fishnet stockings, and a couple of string bikinis. The Wednesday night before my audition, he came over and we danced and danced to the Beverly Hills Cop movie soundtrack. The big day came, and I greased myself up with an ungodly thick layer of self-tanner. I packed up my gear and drove down to the Spearmint Rhino, amping up for my moment in the ring. I walked onto the stage, blinded equally by lights and fear. I chose to dance to "Erotic City" by Prince. They called my name, "Tyler," and I walked up to the stage through the artificial fog and multicolored strobe flashes. Then I browned out. I can only relay to you now bits and pieces of what happened next. I saw men throwing money, strippers strutting their stuff, and the manager gauging my talent. I focused on two things the whole time: not falling and assuming the role of an exotic dancer. After my strip tease haze lifted, I looked down to a stage covered in cash. I was on to something. After the audition, the manager called me into one of the VIP booths. I like you, girl, but don't you think you're a little bit old for this sort of thing? It was true, most of the other girls were in their 20s. If you give me a shot, I'll bring in more money than anyone here. There it was again, that blind confidence. That power of intention. I was in command. And it worked. Just like it had at the pawn shop. Just like it had at Houston's. And just like it has so many other times since. The manager hired me on the spot and I hustled to hold up my end of the bargain. I quickly became the top earner. I was an absolute cash generator. The club was fully nude, seedy as fuck, and just about everything else you might imagine a scene like that to be. On Friday and Saturday nights, we were there until 4 in the morning. I tuned my frequency to the version of reality where I was the best. I intended to be the best dancer and the best looking. I intended to be in the best shape, and I intended to be the highest earner. I fulfilled that order I placed for myself from the start. I also made certain that my deal with that pendulum was cut to my favor, and it was. Shortly after starting there, I began dealing drugs to the girls and staff, a little side hustle on top of my side hustle, because how could I let a blaring opportunity like that just pass me by? These girls needed their shit, and the hustler in me loved the opportunity. The heat was on. I found my path to getting exactly the capital I needed to solidify my legitimate layer of reality. I frailed the fuck out of that strip club. During the weekdays, I dressed up in business attire and went around making jewelry deals as if nothing had changed. I would take the money I earned the night before, sometimes thousands of dollars, and spend it on inventory to flip for a profit. Money started to compound. I would come home from the office, take a nap, wake up, shower, gear up, hammer a Rockstar Lemonade chasing a couple of Vicodin, blast some Crystal Castles, and drive over to the club in my smart car. I was on fire, running off adrenaline and copious substances. I'd walk in like I own the joint, and the staff would clap because they liked when I was there. I had this pendulum greased up. At the end of my shifts, I tipped everyone double of what the other girls were tipping. I understood why they were there, and I wanted to spread the love. I could see exactly what was going on, and in my clarity of sight, optimized my role within the petri dish of depravity, which was the Rhino. I gave the pendulum exactly what it wanted, and it spit out Rhino chips like there was no tomorrow. Rhino chips became my sole intention. They looked like casino gambling chips and were worth either $20 or $100. I went for the $100 chips and accumulated lots of them. 4 $100 Rhino chips would buy 15 minutes in the VIP booth, and I was queen of the VIP booth. I was good at being a stripper. I was really good. I was a lioness there to take the lion's share on top of my own. Some of these stories to come in the next chapters. I shape-shifted into the role and then I fucking owned it. One might even say it was intended for me. So are you digging it so far? I want to talk for a minute about the role of morality and ethics in Reality Transurfing. In the original teachings, Vadim Zeland suggests that you can do anything you want, so long as you do not hurt another person in the process. Reality Transurfing isn't about being moral, walking the straight and narrow, conforming to typical spiritual standards, or even being a good person, really. Reality Transurfing is about leveling up in your reality, whatever that means for you. Truth be told, these are just the mechanisms of the game, objective rules about how reality works. Reality is neutral, remember? I know this sounds salacious, and you, the reader, might be shaking your head thinking, What in the fuck? But this is my book and I want to speak openly, so hear me out and take this as you will. We mostly stay stuck in our lives because we are scared to cross lines. Pendulum set standards and we adhere. I know this was the case for me. I wanted to be good, but the better I tried to be, the more my movement became restricted. The world is chock full of shoulds and shouldn'ts, ideas about how people are supposed to and not supposed to act. But if you were to throw all of that into the fire and do your own thing, what would you do differently? Ask yourself, what do you want? Why do you want it? What are you willing to do to get it? Are you willing to expand your moral standards to make it happen? Are you willing to do something immoral, unethical, illegal? I was. The law is a pendulum too, and we're so often wagering against it. Are you willing to pay whatever the penalty is if you get it wrong? When you hit the gas to make it through that yellow light, Ask yourself what you're wagering. In a split moment, you likely decided that getting to your destination in a hurry was worth the risk of a ticket. Was it? If we lose our wager against the law pendulum, we pay a price. If we win, we've gotten away with cheating the system. No harm, really, just a little foul. But remember, there will there will always be a price to pay one way or another. You won't escape it. The bill may show up in another, perhaps more subtle form. Believe me when I say that I paid for those Rhino chips. Was it worth it? Hell yes, it was. I was acutely aware that my decision to rise up financially by stripping went against a shit ton of the standards surrounding me. Now too, but especially back then, it wasn't considered normal what I was doing. Nearly a 30-year-old businesswoman with a hard-earned, beaming reputation in an industry that values trust above everything, working as a stripper. I was most certainly defying the standards lording over that sector of reality. Then there was the club. I didn't fit the standards of that pendulum either. Most of the women I worked with had no real direction to speak of and no long-term goals. They were just pissing away their dance money on abusive men, drugs, and hair extensions. I'm not saying this is true of all dancers, only that it was a fact of life for the women I worked with at the Rhino. I, on the other hand, was in beast mode, and they thought I was a freak. I was leading a double life. 2 distinct versions of me fulfilling one singular intention. I knew if anyone in the jewelry industry found out about my side hustle, they'd tear my reputation to shreds. The strip club was on the outskirts of the jewelry district, so the threat of being found out was constant. On top of that, I was also sure that if my born-again Christian mother found out about my moonlighting, she would be destroyed. As would my grandparents. As would virtually everyone else in my life. I kept my shadowy side a secret, but looking back now, I honestly doubt anyone would have really given a shit. There may have been some shock, sure, but I now know how true it is that people are mostly concerned with themselves. Even if they had cared and caused a ruckus about it, would it have mattered, really? Would it have stopped me? No way. Dancing, drug dealing, jewelry hustling. I had a lot of coordinates within the alternative space during that time. I was stacking cheese though. I had set the intention to use all of my assets to jump to the next level of reality, and I was doing just that. I was on top of it, and the few crutches I had still propping me up were soon to go. I had become a powerful pendulum myself, and I was swinging higher and higher as the days passed. I captivated the attention of people who eventually became adherents to my pendulum, and that energy allowed me to level up yet again. Do you see where I'm going here? Either you get it, or it gets you. In Paris, it got me. On this life track, I was getting it. Either you eat or you get eaten. You become a pendulum yourself and you use the pendulums available to you to your benefit, or you stay pendulum food. I know this all sounds hardcore. That's only because it is. At least that was the case for me. That's when I met him, Mr. Invincible, an aging billionaire playboy with a wife. He walked into the club at the beginning of my shift. I was relaxing by the fireplace, planning my next takedown. "My, aren't you good-looking," Don said, standing over me with his hands in his pockets. "Would you like me to escort you to the ATM?" I blatantly asked. We both laughed. I had his name and number, and he had mine. I was living with my eccentric artist boyfriend of 2 years, Jason, at this point. We were in an open relationship, and Jason was humored with the entertaining variables I brought to our shared life track. Energy was shifting around, however, and I could feel transformation on the horizon. A mega shift was about to occur in my world, which would involve me giving up drugs and alcohol cold turkey. I did some hearty renegotiating with my addiction pendulum, but ultimately Everything went other than the cigarettes. I quit dancing to set myself up for successfully getting through early sobriety. I tried to dance sober but found it had lost its luster. My jewelry business was roaring anyway, and I knew by then that slinging diamonds was my true passion. I secured a beautiful little office in the jewelry district and fully dedicated myself to the trade. Don, the rich billionaire playboy, left his wife and I left Jason about 6 months in. We moved into a luxury penthouse apartment in downtown Los Angeles, and as the stakes continued to rise, I negotiated with everything in my life to make certain I was getting my fair shake. What I didn't realize just yet was that I was giving more than I had to give and taking what was not mine to take. I split my time between the office, our downtown loft, Don's 76-foot yacht, and trips around the world. Don had a turboprop jet he was licensed to fly himself, so we traveled often and at the drop of a hat. Our life together was as full as a life could possibly be. It was perfectly exemplified in the long-form version of that saying by Charles Dickens, It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epic of belief, it was the epic of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. Don struggled to cut ties with his wife, challenged by standards around family, image, and aging set into place and crystallized by societal pendulums. I struggled to feel secure about where I fit into the picture. It wasn't until almost 5 years later that I realized Don had negotiated a better deal for himself than I had. Another story to come. Blindly, I stayed in the role of his mistress for all those years, some of my best years, distracted by the shiny little lures my pendulums had used to hook me. My importance levels blindfolded me, and I fell for an age-old tale. It was a quick hook, line, sinker. But let's not get too far ahead into the story. A lot more transpired before I was able to break away from the biggest pendulum in my life. The city of Los Angeles, and the person I became while living there, someone eons away from her true self. My life in LA was pulsating but lacking in meaning no matter how high I climbed. I hadn't yet learned the art of stabilizing myself within the alternative space and was still oscillating between those high highs and low lows. Okay, do you need to take a break? Get a drink of water, cool off a little? That was a mouthful for me, and I'm certain it must have been an earful for you. Let's chill out and go over a little theory. Let's break down what a pendulum is exactly. A pendulum can be considered anything that requires your energy to operate. Some examples include the media, social media, your job, your children, relationships, fashion, family, Habits, religion, social circles, hobbies, your own self-image, you name it. Anything you spend time thinking about counts as a Pendulum. Anything you feed your energy into is a Pendulum. It is common for people who study Reality Transurfing to view Pendulums as negative egregores, which isn't necessarily fair. If a Pendulum consumes the energy of its adherents and gives little in return, it's only because its adherents lack the awareness and tools necessary for balancing the transaction. Pendulums are pure energy. They're intangible and therefore ambiguous. The after-effects of a Pendulum swing, however, are patently obvious. Once you know what to look for, you'll recognize that certain experiences and sensations are the results of encountering a swinging pendulum. Example: Management at work announces that y'all will be shifting over to a new POS system. You're mad because the old one worked just fine and why? Just as you suspected, the new system is glitchy. Now everyone is talking about it incessantly, making it the focus of every conversation. Then the new system, which everyone hates, crashes entirely. Your boss comes in to explain the hiccup, and everyone's frustration shifts over to being directed at your boss. Now you've got an enemy in the flesh. For weeks, you and your coworkers clock into every shift feeling indignant and determined determined to make known how unfair things are, etc., etc., etc. Tension builds indefinitely, energy gets sucked indefinitely. Pendulum swing. The pandemic serves as another example of a massive pendulum because it has captivated the attention, and thus the energy, of hundreds of millions of people for 2 years and counting. Pendulums are neither good nor bad. Your experience with Pendulums is wholly dependent on how you engage with them and for what purpose. Your experience will also depend on how focused your attention is on the Pendulum of the Hour, and just how tuned in you are to its flow, disturbance, and wake. One could fill volumes with all there is to say about Pendulums. Pendulums are everywhere, and we're feeding them most of the time. They're what distract us and take our power, but they are also what gives us power. They contribute to our success and lead us to failure. They are the power sources that jettison us to higher layers of reality, and they are what keep us lost in the matrix. They construct mazes that lead nowhere, and spiral staircases that end up in places we ultimately don't want to be. We must learn to take control of the wheel. I'm now going to list the 3 ways in which reality creation can become hindered by Pendulums, and tell you exactly how it happens. Grasp this, and you will be on your way to creating your ideal reality in no time. Firstly, pendlums hinder us from creating our own realities by distracting us and wasting our energy. Energy is the universal currency, and pendlums are vying for it always. When a pendulum hooks you via your energy, your energy output immediately begins to increase. The currency they assume can materialize in various forms, such as accumulated money, growing organizations, and thriving enterprises. Pendulums seek to distract us and keep us feeding our energy to them so they can continue broadcasting and strengthening their intention without dissent. This plays out in various ways that have varying degrees of impact on their human adherents. Let's start with some small pendulums with huge consequences for the unaware adherent. Tuning into things like social media, the news, and current events to the extent that you become completely distracted is the work of a destructive Pendulum. You feed them with your time, thought energy, and action directed towards the Pendulum, i.e., scrolling Instagram feeds, binge-watching Netflix every night, mindlessly trolling Tinder. You dig? With these simple little acts, you become sucked into the swing of a pendulum that has the capacity to keep you from doing the things that will see you to your personal evolution. When I wanted to get my jewelry business rocking, I went to the strip club to raise the capital instead of sitting on my couch in the evenings watching near-infinite seasons of Breaking Bad. Time was money, and I was gonna get me some. Now, for a little bit bigger example: family. Old generational habits and scripts die hard. The family unit can be dysfunctional, distracting, and convincing in powerful ways. Remember my first chapter when I made the claim that most humans strive for two things: survival and being right about their theory? This plays out no more vividly than within the family dynamic. If you attempt to break through certain dysfunctional patterns, beliefs, or collectively agreed-upon ways of operating, the family pendulum will push back on you, and push back hard. My opinion is that pendulums which operate in the form of personal relationships are the most destructive to your ability to create reality. Of these, personal relationships with immediate family have the greatest impact. After this follows, in order, romantic relationships, friends, business associates, and then people you do not know but who reflect societal standards. I can wholeheartedly say that my family has been the most vicious pendulum in my life. The new belief systems and programs I have installed directly challenges theirs. This has made for a toxic and explosive dynamic. Anything I did that contradicted their theories about how it is created powerful animosity and resentment. When an individual deviates from a script and isn't prepared for the pendulum pushback, it seems easier to just go with the program than to defy it. Subsequently, inferior thinking, faulty logic, and poverty mentality spans generations. No one has been told that the spell can be broken by calling out the distraction of dysfunction for what it is and going their own way. Families instill in us ideas about the proper way to go about achieving and/or who is to blame for our lack of achievement. Speaking only to my personal experience, I can say that this is especially true where poverty mentality dominates. The family pendulum may also hinder an individual's ability to create their reality by suggesting there is only one blueprint for life. Something like: go to college, get married, have children, work tirelessly to put money away for retirement, spend post-retirement years unencumbered, and then die. All these belief systems ultimately act as distractions if they are not aligned with who you truly are as an individual. My family's blueprint for survival was to work a minimum wage job your whole life, have a bunch of kids you can barely take care of, and live a life of dull mediocrity. The minute I woke up and decided to deviate from that script, my family decided that I was a highfalutin bitch who must be up to something shady. Again, if you decide to float downstream while everyone else is fighting their way up, you'll get called out. Your ability to succeed without killing yourself in the process poses a direct threat because it calls into question the suffering to which others have subjected themselves by building a life using inner intention. So recognize the pushback for what it is, a distraction in your external environment urging you to rejoin the pendulum's swing. Pendulums are set to convince us, distract us, and elicit adherence by whatever means necessary. Upon recalling my past, I see now I was getting ripped apart by pendulums daily. I was wrought with generational programming that sought to reinforce itself every day, a domestic situation that made me feel powerless, alongside more unassuming pendulums that were just just as consequential, such as drugs and alcohol. Pendulums had me hooked into believing there was no way out of the pressure cooker that was my life. After I woke up, I realized I had more of a say than I'd thought. Making a different choice for myself didn't come without a hitch, but between trying something new and continuing as I was, there was no question as to which was the better option. The second way Pendulums harm us in our reality creation process is by setting standards. By standards, I mean codes of conduct, ethical rules, courtesy, duty, etc. Things like, "You must respect your elders," "Family first," "Be a good student," or "A hard worker," or "A respectable woman." Pendulums create rules. These rules are designed to keep us confined to a script that benefits the Pendulum. It is when we defy standards that we see pushback. Let's dissect this for a moment, because if you can learn to manage your Pendulums, you'll receive back the power you've been unconsciously handing over, which you can then use to create your own reality. There are hundreds of pages within the original Reality Transurfing texts that cover the various Pendulums, how they manage their adherence, and how their adherence can best flip the script. But to boil it all down, there are two questions you need to ask yourself regarding your Pendulums if you want to be successful in your Transurfing endeavor: Does this Pendulum seek to distract me? And if so, do I lose something by becoming distracted? Arguing with your mother, tuning into a catastrophic world event, giving airtime to the friends who tell you that you're aging and better start thinking about children, or a professional environment that pushes you to the brink You may become distracted and consequently lose, or you may become distracted and in the process succeed. For me, pressure in the professional environment served to my benefit. Sometimes Pendulums ask something of us but fulfill our requests in exchange. Again, there is no universal right or wrong when it comes to Pendulum management. Only you honestly evaluating the energetic exchanges that occur and whether you end up on the better side of the deal. Take my relationship with drugs and alcohol, for example. In the beginning, my addiction pendulum had the best of me. I went to drug rehab when I was 14 years old. Drugs and alcohol distracted me until I finally woke up and realized what was going on. I wanted my jewelry business to succeed and knew that showing up to the best of my ability would require me kicking drugs and alcohol to the curb. I did, however, find a way to briefly benefit from the addiction pendulum by dealing drugs at the strip club. I know this is an extremely unorthodox example, but it clearly displays how one can have two different relationships with the same pendulum. —one that hinders and distracts, and the other that propels. I am neither condoning nor condemning drug dealing, by the way. What you do is none of my business. I am simply drawing on my own personal experience, which is all I have, and dealing at the time helped me progress towards my intention. There are cracks which allow us to hack the matrix a little. Scattered around us that pendulums attempt to keep us from accessing. I slipped through the cracks of the jewelry business and in doing so defied some major standards. The idea that a jewelry dealer must be male, middle-aged, and Middle Eastern or Jewish, and must not be a young woman, was just an illusion. I had a choice to view myself as outnumbered or to view myself as one in a million. My partnership with Vadim provides another clear example. I adhered to the standards he set for me for a number of years until I felt the deal imbalanced. Attempting to break free a little, I was threatened with being blacklisted. I made the choice to seal the deal and excommunicate myself, using my blacklist title as a pass to steer this ship in a new direction, which comes form of this very book. Every deal with a Pendulum is up for renegotiation, just as every standard is up for debate. The secret Pendulums don't want you to know is that defying their standards gains you more attention than if you were to not acknowledge them at all. Every bit of success I hold now, I attribute to defying standards. Breaking into the jewelry business, dancing in my 30s, even my contribution to the Transurfing community. A thought leader talking about stripping and drug deals? Blasphemy! Or is it? There are golden threads streaming through our daily lives which will lead us to ideal versions of reality, if we choose them. But they're soft, and golden, nearly imperceptible when we are distracted by the demanding, in-your-face standards that try to bind us. This knowledge is potent. It can and has been used for malicious intent. For this reason, I want to reiterate once again that you can do anything you want so long as you do not hurt another person. I sought to materialize a new version of reality for myself. I had to turn away from the distractions which had me captivated to begin creating the new standards for myself that would enable my success. Had I not done so, I would probably still be struggling today. This brings me to a valuable point: there are two ways to achieve success in this world. One, you adhere to all the standards and beat the pendulum at its own game. This is best represented by the sharks of the corporate world who have climbed the corporate ladder to the very top rung. These players are virtually hacking the matrix by playing into the standards of their environment. The problem I see with taking this route is that often one size does not fit all. And the path to success laid out before you will not exactly align with the frail of your soul. Therefore, so many people who opt into this game find themselves having midlife crisis. They are living a life that seemingly checks all the boxes but does not align with their individuality. 2. Achieve success by doing the exact opposite of the standards. Which is what I've done, and with which I have the most experience. Ignore all the standards, create your own rules, and find the opportunities within your reality to use pendulums to your benefit. I completed only one year of high school, so the second option was more suitable for me as an individual. It also provided me the freedom to rewrite the rules of engagement as often as I please. We've covered some examples of how Pendulums operate at different levels, which brings me to how Pendulums either distract or manipulate us into adhering to the standards they've set. Drum roll please! They do this via Importance. So much of reality creation comes down to managing importance levels. If a Pendulum successfully convinces you that you're flawed, then they've hooked you. You'll soon be eating out of their hands, begging them to grace you with the secret to becoming less flawed. A good example of a Pendulum stepping in to capitalize on importance levels occurs when people aren't getting the romantic relationship they desire to have. Let's use online dating as the pendulum here. Society, media, social media, movies and shows feed us some arbitrary standard for how the ideal romantic love must look. This repetitive programming leads you to place importance on having this exact type of love in your life. Then online dating apps hook you and suck you into a vortex of distraction. All the while coercing you into conforming to set standards that dictate how you should look, act, and position yourself. You adhere, and maybe even succeed at getting what the Pendulum is offering, but you're so distracted that you likely haven't stopped to consider whether the payout is what you really wanted in the first place. Your parents want you to go to college, and you deem their opinion important, without considering any other information, suddenly, you find yourself on a Lifetrack where you are pursuing a career that isn't intended for you. Again, the original Reality Transurfing texts dictate countless pages to dissecting Importance. I will expand on this idea later in the book, but for now, just remember that when you encounter a Pendulum that is trying to convince you of something, distract you in some way, or get you to adhere to a standard, ask if it is triggering a rise in your Importance levels, and remember that this elevation will empower the Pendulum's success. For me, the process of reconciling my Importance levels has gone like this: I lowered my levels of Importance around what I wanted, I didn't stop wanting things, but I stopped focusing on not having what I wanted, and instead focused my attention entirely on how to go about achieving them. I learned to live with little, and I got comfortable being alone. At this point, the standards and ideals presented to me by my Pendulum became mute, and I went about setting my own standards and rules. Intentionally choosing ones that supported the reality where I got to have the things that I wanted. The last point I would like to touch on briefly here, but will be expanded on later in this book, is how Pendulums in your reality will inhibit you by affecting your frequency. Things such as the fight with your mother, the catastrophic event, or the toxic work environment, are pendulums that seek to keep you resonating at a low frequency so that they can continue to extract your energy. Even though I love dancing, managing my energy levels at the strip club was a challenge. Girls passed out drunk in the bathroom, piggish customers, undercover cops looking to bust shady transactions. It was dysfunction junction and the frequency of the environment sucked. Luckily, I intuitively understood enough about reality creation that I was responding by doing what I could to elevate my frequency and keep it there. I tuned out of negative exchanges, kept headphones in when I wasn't interacting with customers or up on stage, and brought high-quality nutritious meals to work with me. It is possible to maintain a frequency that is higher than your environment, But it is much easier to find yourself an environment that supports a higher frequency. So, why do we care about all of this anyway? You should know by now, but I won't hold it against you if you don't. There's a lot here, and we have a lot of deprogramming to do. Let me reiterate a few valuable points before closing: Living under the reign of Pendulums leaves you with little energy left to create your own reality. Either you get your energy or the Pendulums get your energy. Either you create your own reality or the Pendulums create it for you. But Pendulums are sneaky. They are set to convince their adherents that they're getting something in return, because if they didn't, no one would tune in, it would be bad for business. Hear fishy fishy? The media pendulum offers fool's gold for prizes. You are rewarded by getting to stay informed, by honoring your duty as a good citizen, and by having bestowed upon you the illusory opportunity to take a stance. All these things are deemed very important by the pendulum, a standard of importance which then gets transferred to you. The individual buying into the collective narrative gets to feel a sense of security, albeit false, from understanding what's happening in the world at that very moment, even if it's just an illusion. They don't have to figure much out. It's a pre-packaged, ready-to-eat reality. The buyer of this version doesn't have to do much. They can just sit back and enjoy their slop. Pendulums are multidimensional, and for that reason, every individual will have a unique relationship with every Pendulum. For example, relationships can be dysfunctional and exhausting, or they can be beautiful and thriving, or they can be something entirely different. All relationships are Pendulums, some are just more worthy of your resources than others. My example: the typical girls at the strip club were getting ripped to shreds by the exotic dancer pendulum. Most had no intentions and were merely acting out. Me? Well, I was riding that swing, getting the best of it most of the time. I was using that pendulum to my benefit. It's all in your relationship with the pendulum. When confronting a Pendulum, ask yourself: Is this relationship benefiting me? Is it helping me to realize my dreams? Is it helping me to evolve and ascend? How does my time interacting with it make me feel, good or bad? What constitutes "good" will differ between individuals. Think before you choose. Decide to exist on the Lifetrack that is meant for you, however that looks, and ignore the charm and distraction of Pendulums. I've ordered my life around managing my personal Pendulums. If you look at my social media accounts, you'll notice that I follow no one. No feed bombards me with other people's posts, opinions, pictures, likes, ideas, or shares. I am intentional about the information I consume and what gets my energy, Always. I seek out content and information, but never allow myself to be fed it. That said, I do use the pendulum of social media to materialize my intention to broadcast the message of Reality Transurfing to the world. But I'm cautious to stay on the good side of this deal. Social media, just like the news media, has the potential to destroy your life. If you're not paying attention, it will consume every bit of your energy and time while never giving a rip about you and what it's taking from you. Social media will happily create your reality for you, and it'll do it in a flash, because to the social media pendulum, you are just a faceless source of energy. The best questions to determine if it's time to renegotiate with a Pendulum is simple. Ask yourself: Is it good for me? Does the Pendulum know I exist? If your answer to both questions is no, then it's time to reassess the way you're managing the Pendulums in your life, and maybe even sever some of your energetic connections altogether. Managing your Pendulums well will free up your energy, which you can then use to pursue endeavors that will connect you to a higher Lifetrack, a better purpose, and a higher version of yourself. I was addicted to drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes. When I caught myself, when I realized my life was being controlled by the Vice Pendulum, I renegotiated. I started by telling the pendulum I would only partake in certain circumstances. When that didn't work and I still felt connected to the vices emotionally and energetically, I renegotiated again. I told the pendulum that I would take a 5-year break, then once again see how I felt after a period of abstinence. It worked. You can always renegotiate as many times as you need. The same deal occurred when I decided to sever ties with certain family members. For years, I tried to renegotiate the deal, telling myself things like, "I'll only pick up their calls after my workday is done," or, "If something happens to make me feel majorly disrespected or undermined, I'll cut contact for a week at a time." I implemented all sorts of tactics, trying to find a sweet spot, but I couldn't. So eventually, when those connections had become too disruptive, I ejected myself from the family pendulum. Is it ideal living a life without the presence of my mother? No. Is it worth it? Yes. Acknowledging pendulums that are bleeding you dry can feel a bit like opening Pandora's box, in that once you see it, you can't unsee it. If you are dedicated to the art of Reality Transurfing, personal development, or just choosing a happier reality for yourself, you must deal with your Pendulums. There is no getting around that. Believe me, I've tried! Keep in mind that I did not manage my addictions by opposing the vice Pendulum entirely. Instead, I chose to renegotiate the energy exchange and keep it a part of my life track, but only to the extent that it could not impact my success. Pendulums don't care if you renegotiate because they love any bit of energy you expend at the end of the day. You can give them everything, or a little, or nothing at all. It's up to you. If you want to get a Pendulum off your back entirely, recognize what you are getting from it and identify its worth to you. If you conclude it's harming your productivity, or that it is simply no longer worth your energy, stop the energy exchange. Break away from the negativity by terminating your energy transmission. I will get more into the specifics of how to do this in the chapter on balance. The Pendulum essentially works through two channels: one through which you feed it your thoughts, action, and energy, and another through which the Pendulum sends you something in return. Unbalanced deals with Pendulums are often the root of people's unhappiness. In my coaching sessions, I invariably find energy exchanges and benefits that are all askew. So let me say now, if you are unhappy, or not living the reality of your choice, you are most likely giving a lot but not getting enough. In return in some area of your life. Assume this is the case so you can find the source. My time in Paris with Sam serves as a great example of just how elusive the Pendulum can be. Paris indeed gave me a lot, but it also took a lot from me in return. The whole affair was a beautiful illusion, and I was distracted by the wonder and experience of it all. Who knows, maybe I would have done things differently had I known that the ledger would eventually need to be balanced. Harmful Pendulums will send you into a tailspin of negative illusion. If awareness and intention are lacking, a Pendulum can ruin your perfect day in a single instant. You may wake up feeling great, you may spend the morning feeling productive and experiencing the elation of ascending to higher life tracks, and then bam! You encounter negative information and tune into it without thinking. By afternoon, you're lethargic and unenthusiastic because you've been knocked back down from the life track to which you just gained access. Some can spend their whole life on this roller coaster. Why would Pendulums do a thing like that to us poor poor little humans, because they want your energy, and they've cleverly deducted what works to keep you engaging with them. But decrease your emotional connection to surrounding Pendulums, and they will have a harder time hooking into you. It is paramount that you maintain a healthy emotional distance from your Pendulums as you begin identifying them and conducting negotiations. If Pendulums sense any emotion-fueled opposition, any justified outrage over the trouble they've caused, they'll only double down on their efforts to keep you hooked. So, how do you dissolve Pendulum provocations without engagement? How do you handle the incessant Pendulum annoyances that occur all around you on a day-to-day basis? Some friction is normal. It is the part of life that is responsible for our expansion and drive to create. But problem solving can become habitual. We've come to expect that each day will bring with it new problems to overcome. And do you know what's so interesting? Most people have come to believe This is what life is. Friction, struggle, and pushing that boulder uphill. When we believe this, it becomes our reality. And hot damn, there you go. The vicious cycle we touched on in Chapter 1 is back again. Negative theories indefinitely confirming themselves as truth. I'm often asked during coaching sessions, as if my clients are trying to level with me, whether we can actually do the things that matter to us, whether it's realistically possible to accomplish our dreamiest goals. Like, "All this Transurfing business is fun to talk about, but is it really real?" And the thing is, it is. And we can. It only depends how powerfully you broadcast your will to have, and then go about managing your reality and the pendulums to support your intention. Stripping was fun as hell and dangerous as fuck. It was a wild ride that I thoroughly enjoyed for a stint and benefited from in the long term. I stayed focused on my intention: generate capital to grow my jewelry business. I played with fire each night, and although things did get hot at times, I never truly got burned. I stayed the course and got the most out of the deal. Had I become overly distracted and lost sight of why I was doing what I was doing in the first place, the story could have had a different ending. Instead, my bus na move fueled my business with the capital I needed, providing me opportunities for pursuing lofty goals like buying my beautiful sailboat, which I would learn to sail single-handedly and call home for the next 2 years. These stories to come. Pendulums hook you when you're asleep at the wheel and out of control. Be accountable. Determine which Pendulums are exhausting you and renegotiate with them. You may be surprised how far this can get you towards your dreams. I learned how to use Pendulums to gain momentum and quickly saw which pendulums were holding me down to the lower levels. I learned how to become a powerful pendulum myself and dance with the gods of dreams. It wasn't all roses yet, however. I had learned some fancy power tricks, especially during my 5 years with Don. We'll get into some of those juicy details in the next chapter. But I still wasn't dialed to the frail of my soul. Quite the contrary. I had to hit my spiritual bottom before truly considering what was and was not intended for me. That bottom came in the form of what I once would have called my worst fear. Let's talk about some of the good stuff first, shall we? The alternatives flow. Do you want to learn how?