JRy Takes On... Passover [V1.8]

Good evening friends!

There are two major things happening at the beginning of this week as I type this:

1. Passover (yay!)
2. Tax Day (pa-tooey!)

So, for many of you that know me, you know that I observe the Jewish holidays. I could backtrack a lot and tell you multiple reasons why (which will probably happen), but I'm going to keep it short and simple so I can take on why I wanted to blog about the holiday known as "passover".

When I took the time to study my genealogy, I stumbled upon generations old family members, surnames and origins that captivated me. I always knew I was a Spanish kid on my mom's side and for the most part, I was raised very Mediterranean and was taught to love all people and respect culture.

When I traced back a line of my ancestry back to Southern Spain, I was informed that my family had been kicked out of the country during the inquisition. My family, like so many other Sephardics at the time jumped over to Morocco and came back to Andalucia later on and continued on with their life as Catholic Spaniards and moved on to Mexico and other parts of North America.

My mom and dad were both of different faiths when they married and still are. They are also two different ethnic backgrounds.

You have my mom who is a Spanish Roman Catholic and my Mormon father. Cooley is an Irish surname and so I'm just letting you all know: a white mormon + a Spanish Catholic = Josh Cooley, a gay Sephardic JewBu (lol).

Genetic math is crazy like that, ya know?

I went to catechism like most catholic kids and studied The Bible and loved it. I was always interested in the metaphysics of God and miracles. When I turn 17, I started studying Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) and became enthralled in it! I loved it and still do study hardcore to this day.

My parents told my sister and I that when we were 18, we would choose whatever religion we wanted to be. So, for me, I began studying Eastern philosophy, Yoga, Hinduism, Buddhism and stayed true to my Kabbalah studies.

Through time, I started to see all paths of faith as a full-circle wheel to God, the Divine and living a life of lovingkindess.

You've heard that word before if you've spoken to me and have read about it on this very blog. Lovingkindness to me is about compassion and understanding your fellow human. It's about sharing. It's about giving to the energy in another soul and sharing your gifts with the world without prejudice or ego. Lovingkindness sees the world not as a glass half full or half empty, but rather, we see the glass for what it is: a vessel.

A vessel needs to be filled. You can choose to fill it with toxins and drink the poison life hands you or you can fill it with The Light of the Creator and become a beacon for others. Every time you share with someone and it fulfills you, it is as if you were taking some Light from your vessel and pouring it into your friends vessel. We all Light up and all glow together!

How cool is that?

So, with that concept being the basis of my spirituality, I found more fulfillment in the Jewish holidays. For one, I liked the stories. Also, my Kabbalah teachers were able to put the concepts of Passover and Chanukah and Sukkot into everyday terms I could fathom as "real life scenarios".

Keep it mind, alot of Orthodox Jews do not love the fact that there are seculars like me that study mysticism and do not go to Temple. However, I have to inform them at only 46% of Jews actually attend synagogue. It's a statistic! Most people that are into spirituality are not necessarily religious.

Religion can become a bit of a dictatorship and a gate-keeper to the heavens. I prefer to look at all the ritualistic aspects of religion like Shabbat and holidays and look at the deeper meaning of how I can manifest that beautiful Divine energy into my life.

So, let's take tonight for example: Passover.

In The Bible, Passover is the time when we remember the Israelites fleeing the captivity of slavery in Egypt. The angle of death "passes over" all the homes that are marked with a lamb's blood while everyone else child gets slain in this horrible massacre throughout Egypt. That's too much for me! Too gory.

To debate the historical relevance of this is not my goal in this blog. To tell you why pass over means so much to me is the point.

From a Kabbalah philosophy, here's how I see Passover:

Passover is a time of transformation.

Egypt is the ego. Ego often leads us to become a "slave" to our lifestyles and to our Twitter followers, diets, secular lives and bank accounts. Think about it: isn't life full of suffering and stress?

No one said it HAD to be like that. In fact, I know in my heart the Creator wants us to be happy and fulfilled. If we were really a bunch of heathens, he could smite us all quickly. But, the other aspect of that notion is that the Creator does NOT have to smite us when humanity does it to themselves!

Daily, we tear down other people. Daily, we call people out their names using cusswords and put-downs. Daily, we toxify ourselves with parabens, poisons and addictive substances. Daily, we ignore that phone call from a loved one that may need our help... you catch the drift?

That, in and of itself is part "Egypt" (ego). It's self-serving behavior that does not benefit anyone.

Passover reminds us that we need to make sacrifices to live a truly humble and divine life. For some, it may mean saying "no" to that last shot at the bar or saying "no" to that addictive behavior that keeps us in the dark ally of our lives.

For me, passover is a time of growth each year to look at my life and say: "how can I express MORE lovingkindess to the world."

How can I flee Egypt peacefully? No lamb needed.

It means, changing my nature. Not over time, but today.

Passover is like a "soul check-in point" with The Creator and my intuition that reminds me to pump my breaks and live life as a beautiful human being that is worth of all the gifts this world can give and all the gifts that I, personally, can give the world.

Egypt was a beautiful empire. The Ego is a fun place to be when you are living on top, but very few made a difference that made an absolute impact on the souls of others when they were living in the shadow of their own egos.

So, this Passover, I ask you all to just take a moment and think: what am I a slave to in my life? Then.... change it.

Warmly/ Pesach Semeach,
Joshua

Inside Studio JRy: Two Years Later

Inside Studio JRy: Two Years Later

This past Thursday, I celebrated two years of being in business.

I have so many thoughts that probably contrast and go against each other, but these past two years have been revealing.

They're so revealing to me in the sense that I cannot believe how fucking stupid I was thinking that since I was a salon manager and sought-after stylist years ago that I could just throw caution to the wind and open a salon.

I could hear the insistent "build it and they will come"-fantasy echo in my head every single day until the day I signed the lease on the property that would become my salon.

I remember I signed the property lease, announced it on Facebook and on my website and then waited for Sunday to tell my parents what I had done. It was horrific! I felt that I was a brand new balloon craving oxygen and they did not want to be the air that supported my dream.

They asked me real questions.

They asked me about revenue.

They asked about my savings and tax situation and asked about my budgeting and my clientele base. All of these questions seemed so goddamned annoying to me. I never even gave them a chance to mentor me. My parents have been business owners for nearly 40 years and I was sitting there like a brat.

Let's fast-forward to 21 months later and the salon had decent numbers, decent money coming in and I still felt like I was spinning my wheels from month-to-month. I had to go to my parents for some advice on budgeting, inventory and overall business ethics. All three of those categories are categories and subjects people think I have a great understanding of.

Yes, I do.

But let me tell you about most people that come off as perfect: they are often very very flawed in their lives.

Sad, but true.

I strive for perfection every single day and one thing I forgot to listen to was my own voice. I was so busy having my head up my own as and ego the first year that by the time the 1-year anniversary came around, I was fucking spent, jaded and angry for no apparent reason.

This second year of business, I walked into my salon with fresh eyes as I took on celebrity clientele, went to California to work and began writing the draft for my first salon industry book. The difference is astounding!

The one area I had not mastered yet was finances!

I have had to make sense of the fact that I overspend and overcommit and blame everyone else for it.

So, to make this blog entry a little more light-hearted, I put myself on a challenge. I challenged myself to re-budget, pay down debt and start doing little things like getting very strict about inventory at the salon and taking lunch to work and working on mediating and exercising more.

I found that if I took more time to hit the gym and meditate, I didn't have as much time to go out and binge drink (which is a very expensive habit to have). I also found that cooking at home gave me a sense of self-worth and learned how to domesticate myself a bit.

Everything that I bitched about, I learned to love and learned to make an art out of.

Three months have gone by and I'm in a better head space. I try my absolutely hardest to maintain budgets, stay home a few nights a week and have learned not to take anything personally.

All of this wellbeing radiates into my business. I learned that in the first year of resenting business, I was just being an ungrateful brat and that in the second year, I discovered what the theme and niche of Rockstars + Lambs was.

There's 1 part art studio and 1 part doctor's office at my salon that I love. I love the one-on-one approach of working with people. It makes me so happy. I have learned to breathe and learned that if I happen to get angry or frustrated, it's okay to walk away and if I have a gap between clients, it's okay to go for a walk and lock the door and come back before anyone else walks into my chaos.

As Thursday morning approached, I woke up and after my morning meditation and yoga, I took a deep breath and thanked everyone online for two years of support.

I didn't want to focus on anyone that may have dropped the ball, broke my heart or talked shit about me; no matter who you were and in whatever capacity, I wanted to thank everyone for allowing me to have this opportunity.

Tonight, I sit here typing and glance at my book of appointments and look at emails and calls that are still waiting for a reply... those are MY messages, no one elses.

Everything I own, I own outright and everything I am working towards is what guides my desire.

I never want this feeling to end whether it's at Rockstars + Lambs, in my writing, meditating or simple state of being.

For that, I'm truly thankful.


-JRY