Tag: Alternative

Runaway

Please enjoy the musical stylings of A Flock of Seagulls.

https://youtu.be/iIpfWORQWhU

I share this timeless ditty with those of my readers whom are of a similar ilk. Those of you in love with new wave and the likes of you whom, as adults, dream of hitting the bricks more than you ever did as a youngster.

My day dreams consist of freeing myself of this ugly world, and traveling amongst the waves. My dreams at night are focused on simply change and making the surroundings different from what they currently are. Both are indicative of not just my wanderlust, of which I have to a ridiculous degree, but also my desire to just not live on this planet anymore. If I were equipped to be an astronaut, I’d be out of this world by now.

There is currently too much sadness for me to accept. There is too much injustice for me to know how to manage. There is too much apathy for me to stomach. There is too much heartbreak to fathom. I am truly unable to take it all in and I feel like I’m on the verge of a complete breakdown.

That breakdown would not have been completely, though largely, due to most recent events. But rather, years of compounded fear, lack, frustration, hopelessness, and need. The murder of George Floyd 10 minutes from where I currently call home is just the sadness cherry on a pile of trash.

Don’t get me wrong, however. I have been nothing if not genuine when I say that I have a beautiful life. I’ve been fortunate enough to do many of the things I’ve set out to do, from the mundane to the miraculous. I love my life. I’ve grown to truly appreciate and LOVE the life I’ve been given. Hardships and all. Yet, lately, more than I have in probably two decades, find myself wanting to check out. Not suicide, just feeling overwhelmed with sadness and without hope that things around us will get better. I’m so ashamed of my country and the state I live in, and honestly, the state I’m from too. They all suck right now, and I’m bordering on hating them.

I am ashamed that America is rife with injustices that I’ll never ever comprehend. I was born a white female, so I acknowledge my privilege outright in that. I was not born to wealthy parents or family. Quite the opposite actually. But my skin color has not negatively impacted they way I walk about this earth. I’m grateful, with a tinge of guilt. I didn’t choose this life or body. And I feel as though I’ve fought on the right side of justice in all things. I have always stood up for the right things. Injustices I see everywhere. I have fought for women, people of color, marriage equality, and animals in every moment of activism. Even in unconscious moments, like while buying things, I buy fair trade and organic because the earth and it’s inhabitants all DESERVE better.

But I’m still guilty of being a privileged white female American. And I hate it. And I’m also grateful that I’m able to speak to power on behalf of others. I am and I do whenever possible.

I’m just so damn sick of fighting and seeing no results. People are still slaughtering other sentient beings every day. Human and animals alike are fodder to the larger structures and systems, and I’m exhausted and angry. I don’t want to live on this planet anymore. It sucks. It sucks that I’m doing my best with what I have, and what I have is a shit sandwich. I feel like a bad mom for being angry and frustrated and hopeless. So what do I personally do when I feel like the world is crumbling (literally and figuratively)? I want to run away.

When I see there’s just no point in fighting any longer, I want to leave. I want to sell all my worldly possessions and emigrate to a deserted island somewhere warm and beautiful. I want to commune with the ocean and the sky. To feel the salty air on my skin and breeze on my face. I want to leave not out of desperation, as I did in my teens, but out of expanse and connection with something majestic. Something away from the bullshit of modern life. Something bigger.

Thanks for reading and feel free to share where you want to run away to, if you want to run at all, in the comments.

2

We survived, but now what?

If 2019 was the year of forced growth, what the hell, exactly is 2020. According to a random astrology article that I cannot recall the link to, it’s time to bear down through some painful times, to create the world that’s coming next. The article referenced a lot of ‘childbearing’ imagery, which I’m sure is lost on some. Personally, I know exactly what they’re talking about, but I’ll spare the details here. The synopsis is this: we are at a pivotal time in history, in human existence, and for the earth. We are shifting from one ‘age’ to another, metaphysically, and things are getting weird. There’s going to be a whole lot of changes, especially because last year basically kicked our asses out of our ruts and into the unknown.

So, we survived the ass kicking. Now what? We, as humans, and as celestial beings have the distinct privilege of shaping the world around us every day. We put energy out, we receive energy, we take actions, lather, rinse, repeat. This year, like none other in my personal lifetime, we are faced with a lot of energy, emotions, and polarized factions all around us. Yes, there’s been turmoil, fueled by aggression, war, famine, etc. I’m not saying that we aren’t living in arguably the safest time of human history (because we are, and it’s well documented), but now, the issue is that we as a society have become apathetic, due largely to the fact that we are tired. We’re distracted by our lives, our responsibilities, and technology. We’re focused on staying above water in uncertain tides with politics, our jobs, and more.

I feel like it’s worth mentioning that 1) I’m in this same boat, and 2) it’s by no means a judgement on anyone. It’s just absolute fact that we are all tired and distracted. Plus, like never before, it’s all being captured by the media and individuals, then edited and spit back at us in record time. the 24 hour news cycle had no clue that it was going to go this far, this fast. But I digress. We made it here, now what? If I, a simple writer, had any clue, I’d never have to worry about anything ever again. However, I can say this: things are rapidly shifting, and if society doesn’t snap out of it, those loud, shit-stirrers of the world, will be the ones shaping every aspect of the planet (and beyond). Do we, as individuals, want the loudest and most annoying voices on any side of any conflict whatsoever, to be the guideposts? Or do we want those of us falling somewhere in the middle area, where 99% of the populace live, to have a hand in the world we create for our children and grandchildren? I’m leaning toward the latter. I want my kid to have clean air, a chance at an education, safe food, healthcare when she needs it, opportunities I didn’t have, valuable and exciting work, relative physical safety, and maybe even some money stashed for when she gets old.

Nobody can have these things if we are divided up, and fighting each other. Nobody but the wealthiest of the wealthy, that is, who hoard resources from the public, and tell us its for our own good. What’s good for us, ALL OF US, are systems and institutions that work for all of us. Those of us in the United States, we have the opportunity this year to decide the direction of our political establishment. Beyond that, because this is by no means a “political” post or blog, we have to decide every single day what world we are creating. Is it one of fear and lack, or is it one of harmony and abundance. I choose love, personally, and gratitude. I radiate love, gratefulness, and light into the dark places. It’s only by shining light that darkness can be changed.

Sending love and light to everyone reading this. Thank you.

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Wrap up this mess

As most of my readers know, I do a wrap up at the end of the year. This year, is no different in that regard. What is different this year, is that this has been one of the most challenging of the last decade. I wish it was tough for just myself, but it seems that everyone around me has experienced the year of forced growth.

While this year has been a dumpster fire personally, professionally, mentally, emotionally, and all of the other ways for the majority of us, I’m feeling more optimistic than I have been in a very long time. It’s not the saccharine bullshit fake-it-til-you-make-it kind of optimism either. I feel good, like there’s a chance for better.

Yes, a whole lot of really stupid, super awful crap has happened to me. I’ve lost everything, and managed to scrape together a beautiful life, despite it all. I know that the universe is working in all our favor, even if we can’t see it in the moment. I have faith that shit will work out, even if it’s not the way I hope/wish/expect it to. It has taken a mountain of incredible loss and soul searching for me to come to this place.

I genuinely hope that everyone reading this comes to the same realizations and that you too understand that we can all win. Life is messy and complicated and sometimes downright terrible, but there’s always hope for better, even if it just starts from within yourself.

Thanks for reading.

4

Breaking old patterns

***TRIGGER WARNING*** brief reference to trauma survival.

Humans are hardwired to learn from and maintain patterns, especially those required for survival. Since we typically don’t have many predators in our modern lives, except for other, deranged and damaged humans. Through these learned behaviors, we develop almost a muscle memory to situations that strike us as familiar, so we don’t do something potentially dangerous or harmful to ourselves. Not until we are self aware enough or emotionally mature enough, do we realize many of these patterns are not self preservation mechanisms at all, but unhealthy coping mechanisms to protect our most fragile elements, most often – the ego.

Of course some people have protection fail safes, and these folks are generally those with histories of trauma. These individuals have created real patters to protect themselves, and in no way is this meant to disparage them. Trauma survivors are fucking warriors, in my opinion. To come out of troubling situations alive is a testament to the human survival mechanism, and I commend every single survivor.

The people I’m talking about, with unhealthy coping mechanisms, are those that grew up not getting everything they want, while feeling entitled to these desires. The ones who feel like they deserve the great job, the girl or boy of their dreams, the house, the car, the whatever… but doing nothing to achieve them. The people I’m talking about are the ones who had their hearts broken and now EVERYONE is exactly like their ex. The ones who are afraid of commitment of any kind, for fear of loss or failure. The ones who “fail to launch” for those same reasons. The ones who feel like they can’t ever catch a break, so they keep doing the same things, while expecting a different result. These are the people who need to take a deep hard look at themselves, and come up with a better behavior or coping strategy.

Rewiring your brain (which is quite literally what you’re doing when breaking a pattern) is vastly easier said than done. Depending on how strong that neuropathway is, it can take a lifetime to change the hardware. However, with constant reinforcement and attention, it’s absolutely possible.

Gather around kids, it’s story time about what I mean:

I come from a family of people who hide and stuff their feelings. Sorry family who might be reading this, but we do. Then, when the timing couldn’t be worse, we explode and have a total emotional eruption that then levels everyone around, whether or not they’re actually the cause of our discomfort. This is especially problematic with romantic partnerships, because communication is choppy at best, nonexistent at its worst. We don’t talk, then our feelings get hurt, we stuff it because we don’t know how to communicate, we eventually explode, everyone is hurt and angry, we retreat to our corners, lather, rinse, repeat. It super sucks.

Personally, I’ve spent the entirety of my adult life and many of my teen years in therapy and reading self-help books to combat many of the learned behaviors I’ve picked up. The above description being just one of them. My least favorite coping mechanism I’ve been seeking to eradicate is the following: running away.

By running away, I mean, generally speaking, emotionally. However, I’ve been known to run away from jobs where I no longer feel valued, houses in which I no longer feel comfortable, and relationships in which I no longer feel loved. That last one, is especially problematic, since I was married for 10 out of the last 16 years, and in a long term relationship for an additional 3.

When I first got married, at the tender age of 22, to my first husband, when he and I would argue, he would isolate himself (much in part to unresolved anxiety and being an only child), so I would react by emotionally and sometimes physically retreating. After years of this game and feeling completely unable to communicate with him in a meaningful way, I strayed. We agreed to work on things and stay together. Because we could not effectively communicate, to genuinely believed that things were moving forward.

However, once we began working together for the same company, I quickly realized I couldn’t have been more wrong. I met his manager, and knew there was something there. I told him that she wanted to sleep with him, he seemed surprised, but a couple weeks later, he begun staying out late at happy hour, getting rides home from her (she lived 60+ minutes in the opposite direction from where we lived), and simply started behaving erratically. I told him I was leaving. He wanted me to stay, but I just couldn’t live like that anymore.

We spent months in counseling, and set a date for when I would move back home. During that time, he’d begun dating his boss, who was married with a young child, and I began dating a longtime friend. All the while, still trying to salvage this codependent mess we’d created. I stopped dating my friend quickly, as I wanted to give my marriage a real chance, and I thought my ex would have done the same. His boss continued to drive by our house, call him in the middle of the night, and more.

At the set date, I did move back home. It was tense, awkward, and emotionally decimating. After about two weeks, we were getting ready to go to bed, and had an uncomfortable interaction. I was kneeling on the bed, hands in my lap, head down… and in a voice barely above a whisper, I asked plainly “do you even want to try anymore?” His reply was what sealed it “I don’t know”. I replied, “Ok” and got up from the bed and went to my office. I called my grandmother to tell her I would be arriving at her house about 1,000 miles away in two weeks, then I called my best friend to come pick me up.

I put in my notice at work, bought a car, packed up my things and pets, and drove away two weeks later. We spent the next 6 months in a complicated divorce, and I eventually moved back to my home state.

My point in sharing this very personal and still quite uncomfortable story about my life is that, he and I fell into our same stupid patterns as a couple, which didn’t mesh well together. We didn’t work on our communication hardly at all, and we isolated from one another at the first sign of trouble or disagreement. We never worked on the root problems between us and we never had a shot after that. Looking back, I see so many things that I did wrong. I see where I could have done things better, and how we should have gone to counseling long before the beginning of the end. This is in part to the fact that I’ve spent over a decade mulling over this colossal failure and how the relationship might have been saved.

I’m also aware enough to know that it possibly couldn’t have been saved, regardless. My point is that I’ve spent almost my entire adult life trying to overcome this tragedy of my life, because I fell into old patterns. Since then, I’ve worked on things, and some stuff has gotten better, but my good old standby is to retreat when I feel slighted. It’s just my wiring.

When I feel the impulse to run away from a situation, I quite literally force myself to do the exact opposite- to connect. When my current partner and I disagree, I force myself to communicate, when I would feel much more comfortable hiding in my corner. My thoughts still race, coming up with plan A, B, and C for what I’m going to do with myself, but instead of catastrophizing for a long period of time, I do the exact opposite, I get closer to him. I don’t want this relationship to suffer the same fate as my first marriage. I’m older and wiser now, I see the similarities and differences between the partners, and also myself.

Changing our patterns is really hard and most assuredly uncomfortable. I hate the feelings it brings to the surface. I hate reliving painful experiences in the hopes that the outcome will be different. I hate feeling sad, inadequate, and uncomfortable, but these are all signs that I’m doing something different. We could easily just be mad and ignore each other until we feel better, but why? Is it worth it? I don’t think it is. Changing the patterns makes us better in the future, helps each of us grow, and makes the relationship stronger in the long run. It forces me to own my shit, and correct it going forward. One day, one interaction at a time.

Thanks for reading.

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Manifesting Destiny

background balance beach boulder
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

While listening to a book by Wayne Dyer, he said something to the effect of “There is nothing humans can dream, that they can’t conceive”.

Anyone who has taken 9th grade U.S. history knows that the United States was colonized based on a term coined “Manifest Destiny”. Simply put, god told some guys that they had to do it. They had to colonize from coast to coast, because it was their destiny.

Do I think that the universal creator (whomever that might be) gave the impetus to drive Westward, pillaging and destroying everything in their path, losing countless lives on all sides of the mandate? Not a chance. Do I think a pack of dudes got together and said, “out there is the great unknown and we think that it should be ours, no matter the costs”? Absolutely.

Now, what do these things have in common, since Wayne Dyer is the last person I’d think of when I consider forcible anything? Humans thought of a thing and made it happen. They created their destiny and created what they saw before them. These colonizers had zero idea of what they could expect to find, they had no clue how far away it was, or even IF the other coast really existed. They basically just went for it, sight unseen.

Manifestation is the same thing, at its core. We think of a thing, and work towards it, with nothing more than the picture we see in our heads of what it might be like. Then we create something to that effect, in our own reality.

I know there are infinite people out there preaching the gospel of “The Law of Attraction” and “Manifesting“. There are countless gurus for one to choose from, should you be interested in any of these kinds of things. I’m certainly not claiming to be one. But what I can say, is that I’ve moved mountains in my own life by believing that it’s possible, and busting ass toward whatever it was that I was looking to achieve. The key is to have faith that you can do a thing, that the thing is in your grasp, and that you’re laser focused on making that thing a reality in your life. Simple, right?

Not always. Manifesting requires a singular focus on a thing you want. Everything that you do, say, and think has to be toward that end. I’ve tried a whole bunch of techniques to hone my focus, and depending on the thing I’m working towards, sometimes the technique can change. Sometimes I meditate on the thing or use a gratitude list/journal. Other times, I post affirmations that remind me of the path I’m trying to stay on. Regardless of HOW you focus, the point is THAT you focus on the end goal, that you’re unwavering in the fact that it is already yours (it’s just not in your hands yet), and HOW you get there is not even remotely important. I know from my own experience, the path to attaining a goal is NEVER what I imagined it would be. It’s virtually never a straight line. There are course deviations, detours, and roadblocks along the way. Potholes abound. However, the trick, is never giving up and staying the course until the goals are realized in your life.

I’m still new to positive focus and “manifesting”, for lack of a better term. But I can say that looking back, I’ve had some really wonderful successes that I may not have realized were exactly the same as the techniques I’m learning along the journey. Is that to say I’m independently wealthy? Nope. Working my dream job? Uh uh. Have the 6-pack abs I’ve always dreamed of? Hardly. However, I am stronger, healthier, happier, and wealthier than I was six months ago. I’m also armed with the knowledge that I can be self-employed, that I can create something beautiful out of positively nothing, and I have the universe on my side with everything that I do.

By no means does that mean I’m on cloud 9. I still have real life to deal with. Not everything is roses. I have a lot of struggles, debt up to my eyeballs from a closed business, and all the daily bullshit of life (like traffic and preschool meltdowns). But HOW I SEE THEM, has changed drastically. I see all these things as lessons and methods of guiding me toward the path I’m seeking. I feel less stressed, more patient (though, I lose my patience often. I’m working on it), and generally more optimistic than I was previously. It’s good. And most importantly, I FEEL good. That’s what really matters, right? I feel good. Hopeful. Generous. Grateful. Challenged. And most of all, I feel love, all around me and within me, radiating out. Now, THAT, is what really matters.

Thanks for reading.

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