The Happily Ever After

Many people dream of having their ultimate true love soul mate: The One or Twin Flame. If one is lucky, this may happen in their lifetime. If it does, one may never know WHEN it could occur during their lifetime. Not to discourage you, but I once met a 63 year old woman who told me she'd FINALLY met the love of her life. But, I've also known 2 couples from my high school who got together and have stayed together to this day, having children together and making their dreams come true. So there is a whole spectrum of possibilities. Sometimes it's not your first marriage that is your best true love. Some people may have multiple true loves in their life, especially if they lose their first one to an untimely death.

I had always wanted, hoped and dreamed for this One True Love. Truth is, I ended up having several long-term relationships in my life, some with a deeper love and commitment than others, but the fact that those relationships ended really hurt my perception of a "love that lasts a lifetime" existing. Once you go through a divorce, a terrible breakup, an engagement called-off, or some other tragedy in your romantic life, your hopes can be severely dashed.

But, lets go back to my first paragraph, and go from there.

Let's say you are lucky enough to find your 'one' True Love of your Life: That isn't the end of your story. The Happily Ever After that some movies have pitched in our childhood isn't entirely true. Relationships take (a lot of) effort and energy. Aka work. Two people who've come from two different life journeys, fraught with all sorts of obstacles, flaws, mistakes, failures, wounding, scars, and baggage, come together, and then BOOM: alchemy of the two souls. Both of your mini-universes collide and begin to align positively (and occasionally collide negatively) physically, mentally, emotionally, sexually, and spiritually. Integrating both of your lives, careers, hobbies, and families may not be an easy process. Some things will effortlessly come together, while some things may clash terribly. Especially if either or both of you have painful or complicated pasts, and/or differing religious beliefs, sexual expression, love languages, or moral values.  It's different for all couples. Every relationship in this world is a completely unique entity in and of itself. And each person's perspective within the relationship is unique, thus the saying: "There are two sides to every story." Relationships require constant communication and compromise. Because both people within their own unique universe are constantly evolving, and the changes must be discussed as they come. If communication and compromise goes awry, so will the relationship.

Honesty and truth can be tricky. Honesty requires a certain level or amount of safety and comfort to exist and be felt for one to reveal their deepest truths to another, and if that threshold isn't met, then lies and omissions may occur. This level or threshold of safety for honesty could be different for every one, and every couple. People tend to lie for these reasons: 1) They're afraid of emotionally hurting the recipient of their truth 2) They're afraid of the recipient's reaction back at them, including being potentially harmed as a result physically, emotionally, mentally, verbally etc. 3) They're not sure at the moment how they actually think and feel (lack of clarity to give a 100% truthful answer) 4) They're afraid of the overall consequences of revealing their truth. Sometimes revealing truths can unravel someone's life entirely, destroy their current reality, and set their life on an entirely new course, which could look and feel terrifying in the mind. Sometimes I wonder who coined the sentence "The Truth Will Set You Free", because that's not always a true statement either. Just ask a million people sitting in prison what their opinion may be on that sentence... Sometimes I think a more appropriate statement would be something like, "The Truth will hurt you."

Coming together with someone in a deep loving romantic connection, is actually a very vulnerable occurrence, and can bring up so many fears and insecurities. Many of your wounds, triggers, "flaws", and damage get spotlighted during a relationship's progression. This can be cause for great self-reflection, growth, and healing, but also for great pain, difficulties, and sadness as these things get confronted, stirred-up, or unearthed, sometimes over and over again. When you give a person a microscopic view of yourself and your life intimately, you could end up handing them the keys to your undoing, so it's a delicate and vulnerable situation. Your beloved's opinions and judgments of you can feel deeper, more insightful, and more painful to process than anyone else's, besides your family members. You get pulled into each other's hurricane of life. A romantic couple isn't just the two of them, it includes everyone else that each individual is connected to in their life, it's a very large network of people that also has to adjust to the new romantic couple. Everything that happens to you and your beloved, will immediately affect each of them, and those closest to them. It's a ripple effect.

Try to choose your romantic love partner(s) wisely. Look beyond the surface beauty or materialism they may possess, and peer into their personality(ies), energy vibe, and shadow side(s) to get a more accurate analysis. This however, could take months and years to uncover, and even then, everyone is always changing and evolving, so the learning of your partner is a continuous process.
Appreciate the good things about your partner and the beautiful moments shared, as often as possible, to hopefully overshadow the more negative parts and memories. Enjoy the journey, as best you can.

~Mandelyn Reese~
TheStreetAngel.com
3/11/2020

The Hardest Lesson

If I could go back in time and speak to my more-naive self, something so important I would tell myself is: A person's actions and words need to line up, AND, you can't force someone else to feel the same way as I do about them.

Unrequited love, hand-in-hand with rejection, has got to be one of the most painful human emotional experiences next to grief over the death of a loved one. Because once you finally accept within yourself that the human object of your love doesn't feel the same way in return, it can result in very deeply damaging emotions of grief and despair. I know because I've been there, I've unfortunately had the experience of it, rough and in the raw. And no amount of time or therapy can change the memories of it. They are what they are, and are written in the sands of time, and Akashic Records of Heaven.

Loving the "wrong person" can deplete the life force out of you to the point where you feel next to death, and maybe even feel like you want to die. It's THAT exhausting and awful. Whatever the deep spiritual lesson the experience may contain, it sucks. Maybe it's as simple as: if someone doesn't reciprocate love and actions, cut loose and move on asap. Otherwise, you could end up a depleted washed-up soul-vagabond. Giving to someone who's basically like a black-hole. Sucking away your energy, taking all you give, and not valuing or returning it. Basically taking you, your love, and efforts for granted.

~Mandelyn Reese
9/10/2019

The Man Laying on the Street

If this is the last blog I ever write, it will be the epitome of my mission.

On Thursday, January 11, 2018, I went alone to visit the Cathedral of our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles. I had just always wanted to check it out. As I was leaving the parking garage in my car, I noticed a man sprawled out on the sidewalk, looking unconscious or dead. He had no shoes on, and his clothes were torn. Normally when you see a homeless person laying down, you can tell they are just sleeping or resting. But THIS guy looked sprawled out in all directions like a starfish, and it concerned me. I pulled my car over near him. I observed crowds of people just walk right by him. Business men in suits with briefcases, and other women. This guy is sprawled out looking dead on a crowded street, in front of a church...a church that had charged me $20 just to park...and there were scores of cars also just driving past this guy laying out on the street. How long had he been laying there like that, in partial sunlight bearing down on him?? I asked myself, "Is this a test? God, should I check on him?? I'm kind of scared to." The answer I got back from spirit was: 'Yes, go check on him.' 

                                   (This is not the actual man)
                             

I put on my angel wings with the message on the back that said Be Kind. This was going to be an act of kindness in action for others to see, and hopefully do themselves in the future if they come across someone who needs help. I got out a spare jug of water I had in my car, and 2 "Kind brand" granola bars. As I approached the man, I could smell him, and it was bad. As I got close, I could see that the skin on his exposed lower leg was scaly white and cracked all over with open sores on his flesh. But I neared him gently, and placed my hand on his shoulder, shaking him a bit. I asked him, "Brother, are you ok?" And again, until he opened his bloodshot eyes, and said "Yes, I'm ok." I asked him if I could leave some water and granola bars with him. He said yes, sat up, and immediately grabbed both items. He drank some water, then tore open one of the granola bars to eat. I put my hand on his shoulder and told him, "God Bless you, brother." And walked back to my car. I happened to be in a tow-away red zone to be able park near the man. When I had been in the cathedral's gift shop, I had seen a plaque on the wall with a quote from Mother Theresa that said: "If you can't feed the masses, just feed one." 

Do unto others, as you would want them to do unto you.

-The Street Angel

Mandelyn Reese

1/11/2018

TheStreetAngel.com

Tainted Love

I was quite pleased that I had secured a very comfortable window seat on my Southwest flight back to Los Angeles from Portland. As I situated myself into my seat for the flight, my new seat-mates arrived rather quickly: a sweet young girl with glasses asked if the 2 seats next to me were available, and I said "Go ahead!". She and a guy sat down next to me. It wasn't until after awhile that I realized they were a couple. They appeared to be a very young couple, in my opinion. They had the appearance of highschoolers. At one point when I glanced over at them, I saw the young man looking at the young woman while she spoke, and the WAY he was looking at her, was so beautiful. That deep look of love, that only the eyes can convey. I didn't know who they were, I didn't know their names or ages, but I could tell that he loved her. Just from the way he looked at her. It wasn't until the end of the flight, that I told them that they were cute, and asked how old they were, and was told they were both 19 years old.

As the flight progressed, I looked over at them, and saw they had fallen asleep leaned against each other, with their hands grasped together. It was completely adorable. I felt compelled to take photos, of this beautiful young love, but I didn't want to violate their privacy. But I did it anyway. If for any reason, to prove to myself that this still existed. Maybe not for me anymore, but at least for the experience of other people. It made me reminisce about my first love....

It was junior year of high school, year 2000, and my history teacher told our class that we had to get into groups of 5 to create a rather large project. I don't remember all of what we had to do, but it was a lot of work that required library research and creating a poster board. Once I had been assigned to my group, we all kind of blew off the assignment, until the night before it was due, then panic ensued. Being a highly studious student in honors classes, I contacted ALL of my group members, seeing who could get together to complete this important homework project. Only ONE person actually gave a damn besides me, and that person became my first epic love, and boyfriend. When we had originally been assigned to this group, we barely noticed each other. I don't think we were remotely interested or attracted to each other....until we ended up together in the library, frantically trying to complete the huge group assignment so we wouldn't fail ourselves and everyone else in the group that didn't do any work (haha). It was somewhere in a random library isle, that the first sparks of love and interest lit up my heart. It was clear the feeling was mutual. We didn't look anything like we were "right" for each other, but fate had other plans. We fell for each other, and he ended up asking me to the prom. Then after a month or two, our mutual friends confronted us, to ask if we were boyfriend and girlfriend, and I just replied "Yes" without hesitation, which startled me a little that I had blurted that out, but that apparently made it official. I had an official boyfriend, finally, at the end of my junior year of high school. I had almost given up hope that I would ever find love in my school career. lol

There is so much I could write to attempt to cover 3.5 years of our relationship. But it was a very slow progression into intimacy. He was very patient. I had a promise ring from my mother, to remain a virgin until I was at least 18, and I kept that promise, and didn't lose it until 4 months after my 18th birthday, when my boyfriend was getting antsy after waiting for 11 months into our relationship to proposition me. In hindsight, I was very grateful for this series of events, because I can honestly say, that I lost my virginity to a man that I loved, who treated me well, and made me feel special and loved. 

But, it didn't have a happy ending. Thus, the reason for this blog. As I gazed upon the so-in-love young couple on the airplane next to me, reminding me of the beauty and innocence of new first love, I actually got a little sad. Because I realized that because I've been broken-hearted several times since my first boyfriend, that I'm tainted. I can't even look at a man that I'm interested in now, without thinking: "How and when will you hurt me?". It's not pleasant, nor healthy. It's a fear-based reality. But how can I change or avoid that? There is no fixing history.

That beautiful first love boyfriend proposed to me all romantically in front of his family at a picturesque setting in front of a pond at a museum, with their cameras ready. Then, just 2 months later, without warning, he pulled the rug out from under me. He broke up with me, on the night of my 21st birthday. And I was devastated. I can't think of any other time in my life that I have been more devastated than that. I wanted to die. I was in dark place for quite a while. I had no idea what to do, or what had gone wrong, or what I'd done wrong. I would have had a 4.0 college GPA had that not happened to me. My senior year after I got dumped, my grades dropped across the board. I would have tears streaming down my face in the middle of class. I couldn't focus. I could barely function. In the days after the breakup, I had a few panic attacks, couldn't eat, sleep, or drive properly. My perception of love, had been forever tainted. It didn't last. I would have taken a bullet for that guy. I would have jumped in front of a speeding car for that guy if I had to. I loved him that much. And in the end, I felt tossed aside like a piece of trash. That's how I remember it. And no amount of time, can fix that.

14 years later, it's still hard for me to think about. It's an experience that I wouldn't wish on anybody.

But...this evening on the airplane, getting to view first hand how beautiful, sweet, cute, and innocent this new love was, was refreshing, and made me miss that. If only I could go back to that place where I wasn't tainted anymore, and experience that love again. I suppose only time will tell, if I will ever get to be loved again.

~Mandelyn Reese

12/16/2017

I am Me

I'm an Angel, and The Phoenix

I am Stardust, mixed with Earth

I am Feminine, but also Masculine

I am Yin, with some Yang

I am grateful, yet I'm sad

I am strong, and yet I'm weak

I am whole, but also broken

I am beautiful, but flawed

I enter like a freight train,
but am delicate like a flower

Wild & free like a mustang,
but chained to a blanket of fear

I show my vulnerability now,
and surrender to your view
You are now a piece of me
And I a piece of you

~Mandelyn Reese

TheStreetAngel.com

7/4/2017

Independence Day

The Power of Attraction

5/2/2017

The Power of Attraction - Meditation Spiritual notes - by Mandelyn Reese, TheStreetAngel.com

The power that can potentially be wielded by the attractive is immeasurable. Having come from "both sides of the tracks" at different ages of my time has given me this insight. However, it's HOW this attractive power is wielded by the person utilizing it, that is the broad spectrum of conversation. If the attractive person uses this power for "evil" or "bad motives", that's one way. If a person uses it for survival, that's another way. If a person uses it for "good" or to "promote" things, that's yet another way. There's also a combination of them all depending on the situation in which you find yourself on any given day! If a person "realizes" they are attractive based on their body traits & appearance, then it affects how they proceed creating their life, in co-creation with other beings around them, and that they encounter. Since each relationship with another soul is a unique imprint, the ways in which the attractive qualities are utilized can be varied, because of that saying that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", which is true, because what or who one person is attracted to, may completely "turn-off" someone else. What I mean by that, is that for the first half of my life, I believed myself to be an unattractive reject, because boys I liked would tell me via messengers that I was ugly; up through age 17 in high school. If you take into consideration the infamous "Law Of Attraction", which states that we attract things based on the energetic "vibe" that we put out into the universe (think of it as a whale squealing out into the ocean to hear if anything reflects the sound), then it's probably why my first love boyfriend and I ended up together at age 17: we probably both believed ourselves to be unattractive, but found love in our commonalities and camaraderie. It wasn't until I was 21 did my looks change, or perhaps my awareness of my looks having changed were made known to me by guys. But even by 28 years old, I had a man tell me that I was a "9 out of 10, a 9 because I lacked confidence in myself". That was a powerful statement that really affected me, and I didn't really know how to process that for awhile.

I have done my best to use my appearance for good...and survival. I attempt to make a "good example" of positive behaviors that could help the whole of the world, Earth, and humanity, as best that I understand "the whole" to be (from my perspective and from what I've seen). But I'm not perfect. If imperfection means having quirks, flaws, scars, birth marks, heart wounds, body pain, stuff I regret, things in my past that I wish I could amnesia away, moments of embarrassment, times of terror, lots or romantic rejection, sad/dark/weird thoughts, then I'm just like you and everyone else! And yet I am perfect just as I am, because there's only one of me. I even have my very own DNA strand, thumb print, and social security number lol.

I don't think anyone can really fathom or explain the whole, except for maybe God itself (which many say has no gender, that it's the combination of masculine and feminine energies and everything in-between. Which is why there's such a vast array of uniquely formed individuals with unique looks, tastes, styles, sexuality, gender-identification, proclivities, & hobbies. It's God expressing itself in as many infinite ways as it can imagine. Who can define God? There are probably infinite possible definitions if you were to try. Have you ever considered that maybe even God itself has pondered where it came from?

~Mandelyn Reese
TheStreetAngel.com
5/2/2017

The Convergence Point: Where Your Past's Shadow Meets Your Future's Uncertainty

On Monday February 6th, 2017, I had scheduled a healing call with my dear friend Justin Elledge, who is a Buddhist Healing Master. I met him when I first started my Angel Project in Los Angeles back in August 2012 and was new to the area. He was in a VIP room giving healings to people at an event called "The Knowfest" when I walked in, and we made eye contact. For unknown reasons, we were drawn towards each other, and he simply placed his hand on my elbow, and BOOM:..... I was showered with a profound blast of Heavenly unconditional love energy, that was so powerful that I busted out into tears upon the touch of his hand. At that moment, I knew he was one epic person, and I wanted to learn how he did that.

                                               Photo: Justin Elledge and I back in 2012

I since went to his Buddhist temple and took the Medicine Buddha class, so that I could learn some of their healing modalities. I use the healing chants in my sessions on clients to this day.

Anyways, back to Monday February 6th's phone call with Justin. He ended up walking me through a meditation and breathing session I'd never done before. During this exercise, I had an interesting experience:

He was mentally taking me to higher planes, which he called portals. Then suddenly he like clapped his hands and said something about a convergence, and when he did that, it was like I was standing in the Matrix movie, during the part when Neo and Morpheous were inside of a pure white existence all around them, that was computer generated.

The only difference in my case, was that I was aware of shadow behind me. The messages that I received were that the future is like the pure white room, not having any form yet. Everything seems uncertain and unpredictable. You never know what each day will bring. That you have to look at each day as its own unique package with various blessings and lessons. You can only be in the here and now, because the future has no substance yet and the past goes into the "shadow". Like this convergence point was standing on the line of the yin yang symbol between the duality of light and dark. While we can't know for sure what the future holds for us, we do have a part in creating some of it.

It was pretty epic. I felt very at peace and calm during and after the session. I figured I would write it out while it was fresh on my mind, and share the experience with you so you can interpret it however you wish to.

~Mandelyn Reese

The Street Angel

TheStreetAngel.com

Written 2/8/2017