Tag: positivity

Writing is hard, mmmmmkay?

Ok, the writing itself isn’t hard. Really, it’s carving out the time to do it. Yes, I make time to do other things, such as watching tv with my partner, read stories to my preschooler, stare off into blank space, and of course, the ultimate time suck: scroll through social media. But lately, we’ve been falling into the rhythm of the change in season (and daylight savings, since I’ve not had to do that in many years. Hats off to Arizona for not succumbing to such silliness). The days are getting shorter, the air getting significantly colder, and motivation getting harder to muster.

Instead of writing, I’ve been doing my best to get into a gym schedule that works with my every-pressing work obligations. My ability to keep healthy during the long Midwest winters is something I’ve been striving for the last few months. I do not want to get into a rut of laziness, certainly not before my sunny mid-winter vacation we’ve got planned. I want to look and feel strong and healthy alongside my family while taking in the sea air and ocean views.

Moreover, I’ve been looking into winterizing my car, and looking for ways to keep myself happy when “outside” isn’t on my radar. We are investing in full spectrum light bulbs to ward off the SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), of which I definitely struggle, and also fun things to do indoors for a houseful of people who are busybodies. Interactive games and toys that span a wide range of ages are easier said than done. We have a preschooler and teenagers, in addition to adults with short attention spans.

As I have done many times in my recent past, I’ve made a decision about this new season (read: goddamn it’s cold), and that is to embrace it. Despite the fact that everyone in my house has fallen ill in the last few weeks, I’ve maintained my immune system’s fortitude. I do not plan on being anything but healthy throughout this winter (and beyond). I will continue to boost my immunity with elderberry, zinc, vitamin C, and my standard multi-vitamins, but more to the point, I have made the mental and emotional choice to remain mentally healthy too. SAD is a real, and sometimes serious condition, especially in this part of the US.

I’m not saying I won’t have down days, because that’s a distinct possibility as the grey wears on for weeks. The winter here is just starting, and I’ve got a long time before we see much of the sun again. However, the decision I’ve made is this: I am going to embrace this part of my life here. Not just for me, but for my partner and the kiddos in our lives. They all look to me, consciously or not, to be a constant grounding force in our home. I owe it to myself to accept and love the life I’ve chosen, even if this climate is exactly the opposite of my desire. But I also owe it to my family to be happy, present, and connective as much as possible.

The cold sucks, the snow sucks, the winter that drags on for what seems like eons, sucks. But, I have the power to smile through it. To see my daughter see snow for the first time, to build forts, and throw snowballs, and go sledding, and throw herself into snow banks, just as I did so many years ago. I have the opportunity to experience my youth again, and all the excitement I once had, with fresh eyes and wonder, with her and through her. I also get to do it with the family I’ve chosen, to create new memories with them, to share experiences with them. I’m so grateful and I cannot wait.

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Wake Up

When I typed in “bed”, to search for a photo to go at the top of this entry, there were quite a few clocks similar to the one I chose above. It’s very strange that searching for a bed, I get a clock. However, it’s rather fitting, given the title.

Waking up, is quite literally the very first thing we do each day. Not “being awake”, as to many of us “awake” is a much different state than “waking up”. For a large portion of us, the thing letting us know that IT IS TIME, is often a loud thing in our ears. Whether it’s an alarm clock, a child, pet, or partner, something jolted us from asleep, to awake.

I, personally, take issue with this jolting part. I’m sure many others do too. However, unlike many people, at least in my life, I do not like snoozing. I typically, if left to my own devices, just get up when I wake up. Recently, my partner has been quite persuasive in encouraging me to remain in our warm, comfy bed a few minutes longer than I would otherwise. I silently think he’s using it to feel better about himself snoozing a bit extra, but don’t tell him I said that. ;)

In reality though, I tend to oversleep and wind up rushing, rather than allowing myself a few extra moments of relaxation before stepping out the front door. When you have a small child, spare minutes are really helpful. Especially since my kiddo is a sleeper. She will sleep 10 hours or more if I let her. Unfortunately, like her father, she’s also a night owl. I’m an early bird, so her bedtime is early, because she has school and I have work. Also, she takes forever to wake up more days than not. It’s annoying trying to coax a preschooler out of bed at 6am, without a major fight.

I know there are some kids like me, and you are all my people. I’ve never been a sleeper, not even during my partiest of party years. I was always on time for work, even after virtually or actually zero sleep the night(s) before. I wasn’t even a sleepy child. But I think the reasons for that are more anxiety related, and maybe they still are.

Which leads me to discuss the real topic of today’s blog. The sleeping habits of my family was merely a segue.

There’s a new culture about that’s gained popularity and a name. Woke. I’m by no means an expert on popular culture in any fashion, but I pay attention to things. Woke culture seems to be heavily intersecting with Call-out culture which has shone a light on a number of really great things, but I also think that they can be really damaging in certain contexts.

Trust me when I say that I’m an absolute advocate for human, animal, and environmental rights. I’ve spent the majority of my adult life as an activist, but part of me wonders, what happened exactly to letting others do their own thing, as long as they’re not hurting anyone else? I had a teacher in high school say that my rights as a person end at the tip of my nose, or that my rights do not extend to a place where yours are being infringed upon. So, who are people that are telling me that I’m wrong for doing X,Y, or Z, if it’s not affecting them in any way? I’m just over here, doing my thing.

If I’m over here being an asshole, I fully deserve to be called out, but if I have purple hair (which I do at 38 yrs old), who cares? If my partner and I have tattoos and have the nerve to swim in a public pool, who gives a shit? Why do people suddenly feel entitled to give me or him or anyone else flack for that?

The short answer: you don’t. Knock it off. End of discussion. Pretty simple. Stop it. The end.

But meanwhile there’s politicians trying to legislate women’s bodies, the rights of trans people, and profiteering from war and gun violence. There’s something seriously wrong with this. If you want to call anyone out, let’s call out our legislators. Call your congressmen and women. Get woke to real shit and let’s be working toward equality and rights for us all. Instead, there’s a bunch of infighting, bickering, and worse. Knock it off. Your rights end at the end of your nose. You don’t get to be in charge of anyone else’s body, mind, rights, etc. Stop it. End of discussion.

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Busy?

Are we really busy? Or are we distracted? Overwhelmed with all of the things that are expected from us? Straight up, burnt out? And more to the point, what can we do about it?

Last night, I had best laid plans to come home, get settled, and get writing for my 500 words and take a moment to meditate and reflect. Yeah, that didn’t happen. I had every intention of sitting down while my kiddo was eating dinner and my partner was otherwise occupied. What my rational brain did not take into account were the plans of other people. The kiddo wanted to play bubbles in the yard and call grandma. The dogs needed attention. Dinner needed cooking. Meltdowns happened when it was time to come back inside after bubbles. Downloading with my partner had to happen. By then, it was bedtime and even that was a challenge with yet another, more massive, meltdown.

It seems with our busy lives that there’s just no break. The days run together and it’s hard to catch your breath. But what if it wasn’t this way? Would we just simply fill our time with more crap to feel like we are productive? I know that I’m often at odds with “free time”. I feel like I’m not “doing” anything and therefore wasting my finite time. However, what are we really doing with a lot of this time? Yesterday, when I could have been writing at work, I was online shopping for some dress clothes and a couple things for the kid. I was also compulsively checking my email for no reason at all. I wasn’t waiting for anything important. Just kept checking, about every 30 minutes. Also, I scrolled facebook like you wouldn’t believe, or would you? Social media, while often a necessary evil to this modern world, is responsible for hours of our lives disappearing in a blink of an eye. How many times have you been mindlessly scrolling to realize that it’s been an hour, or possibly more? I can confess that it happens to me regularly. Looking down at my phone for countless minutes, only to suddenly come back to life with half my day wasted. It’s such a time-suck.

Now, this isn’t to bash on the FB, because that’s certainly easy to do. But rather, it’s to highlight that we need some things to be happy, healthy, truly productive humans. The first being, needing time to decompress. We are so stretched in our daily lives with the pressures from work, home, kids, partners, and much more. There must be a few moments each day (gasp!) where we disconnect with outside forces and focus inward. Next, we need to simplify. If it’s committing to fewer obligations in a day, so be it. We need to accept that we are human beings, and while marvelous creatures, we simply cannot keep going at the pace in which we are. It’s burning everyone out at record speed. This makes us grouchy and short tempered. It makes us unable to make the myriad of decisions we need to, with a clear head. And finally, we need to slow it all down and refocus on what is important. Yes, we all make excuses that if this or that doesn’t get done by whatever time, some consequence is looming. However, I posit this question in all sincerity. What happens to US, to our psyche, our souls, if we no longer take the time to appreciate the world around us and the people, places, animals, etc in it? What kind of life is that? Is it even one worth living?

If we do not have the deep genuine connections with those around us, what is the point? If you read a previous entry of mine, THIS IS YOUR LIFE. This is what we’ve got. We have the chance to make it everything we’ve ever dreamed of, or we can work ourselves into the ground, completely missing the beautiful experiences we could have had. And trust me when I say that I’m not coming at you with this shit from my ivory tower. I’m a working stiff just like everyone else here. I clock my hours and get paid what my employer thinks I’m worth. I’ve got bills and a family that need my attention all the time. I’ve got pets that need feeding and care. I’ve got a car that needs repairs all the freaking time. This is not a judgement. It’s a plea. The collective conscious needs to change from this scarcity mode of operation. We need to find the joy in everyday so that we are not just existing to pay bills. I certainly didn’t come into this life thinking that I was going to work to pay bills and then die. Fuck all that noise. I’m not on this planet to slave away, are you? I’m on this Earth to learn and grow, experience and change. I’m learning this more and more as I get older.

Join the revolution. It’s beautiful here.

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What the world needs

To put it mildly, there’s an awful lot of terrible shit going on in the world. It’s truly mind-boggling how the 24 hour news cycle, media sensationalism, political figures, war, famine, abuse, bigotry, and all of the misery throughout every corner of the planet is beamed into our every waking moment. Thanks to social media and cable news, it’s easier than ever to see destruction and get overwhelmed by these horrors. As a matter of fact, the abundance of these terrible tragedies is so ubiquitous, that it’s created a new condition called compassion fatigue. I call it apathy.

This new, collective apathetic nature of humanity is making it even harder as a society to stop these terrible events. To me, that’s the real tragedy. We feel hopeless and powerless, when in fact, we are nothing but powerful. We have just forgotten that we create the world around us. We have forgotten that WE ARE POWERFUL.

What the world needs now, is love. Love is the light it the darkness. Love and gratitude are the only things to save us all. We can all be free if love and gratitude are the baseline. I know it sounds trite and totally cliche, but I truly believe this to be true. I can tell you, that in my own daily life, when I lead with love and gratefulness, I am better and so are those that I come in contact with.

It’s easy to be angry and hateful. It really is. It’s easy to be pissed off about your life and all the shit surrounding it. But love, especially when things don’t go our way, is really fucking hard sometimes. I’m human just like the rest of you, and I get real mad about things. However, the minute I empathize and come from a place of love, I feel better. When I feel better, I behave better and think better. If I can feel better and do better, I can radiate love and feel lighter.

It’s that lightness I want to bring into the world around me. I want to be a beacon of light. A lighthouse for those lost in a dark sea. I want to guide those ships home. Home is where the light and love are. Without the light, there’s only darkness, and that’s where the collective seem to be. Honestly, that’s the real tragedy. We’ve lost our way, and we need to spot the light. We need to follow the bright spots and let them bring us home.

Home is where the heart is. Love can grow there, thus creating more love and light. We are capable of illuminating even the darkest of places with love. What the world needs now, more than ever, is each of us to become lighthouses in all the dark places.

No, that isn’t just some hippie nonsense. Each and every one of us has the power to create light around us. Instead of yelling at the asshole who cut you off in traffic, you can say that you hope he gets to work on time, or that he needed to get somewhere in a hurry, so it’s ok that one car got in front of you. Instead of lamenting your micromanaging boss, you can understand how they may feel inadequate and powerless in their position, and those feelings spill over sometimes. Instead of flirting with your cute coworker that has a partner, you can understand how yes, the attention is nice, but how would you feel if that were your partner flirting at work or school? Rather than being mad at your lazy kids for not cleaning up after themselves, you can recognize that children are under immense pressure at home and school, as well as their brains are still being formed and cognitive ability just isn’t there yet. We can all be the light. We can all be love and gratitude, we’ve just got to do it. That’s where I am. I vow to be a light creator, and a beacon of love and gratitude. Join me. Let’s create the world we want to see.

Thanks for reading.

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Do you?

The last few days, I’ve been meditating prior to beginning my writing for the day. Today, I spent my morning tending to someone in pain, rather than officially meditating. That in a way, was meditative, to me. It gets me out of my own head, focused on another, with nothing but help and kindness on my brain. However, I’ve also been letting some ideas marinate outside of the meditative process, so that these ideas settle into my conscious mind. For instance, I’ve been listening to a couple of books, as I’ve previously mentioned, but I stopped earlier in the week, so that the concepts can sink in and become resonate in my conscious mind. My subconscious has it under control, I’m sure. But the slow part of my silly human head, that “rational” part… it takes time to “get it” quite regularly. Anyway, these ideas are slowly coming into their resting places in the old noodle.

Simultaneously today, I had a conversation with a couple of dear friends about 100% different things. One is a rather new friend, but he and his wife and I have a very deep friendship, bordering on family. The other is a lifelong friend, whom has been my partner in many adventures since we were teenagers. Both conversations were moving and shone of synchronicity to things I’m developing in my own personal life. Without giving out too many details of these interactions, I am simply grateful to be the caliber of person that those close to me seek advice from. I feel so honored and blessed that I can help people work through difficulties in their lives. It’s truly my life’s work to be in service of others, and to make the world a better place for everyone that inhabits it.

This is literally the reason I am not only a Buddhist, but also an animal advocate. It is my sincere wish that no being on this planet suffers, and while much suffering is unavoidable, I aim to inflict zero suffering on those I encounter. I do not kill animals for food, clothing, or otherwise. I do not kill insects. I am grateful for the plants that gave their “lives”, while not sentient, they are comprised of energy and I respect that force. By no means is this to say I’m better than anyone. Quite the contrary. I believe that I am no better, therefore, I have no right to take that which is not mine to take. Lives of sentient creatures are not mine. Beyond not willfully inflicting suffering, it is my mission to help those in need.

Too often in our society is it easy to get what is called “compassion fatigue”, and as an empathic person, I am continually overwhelmed by the sadness around me locally, and globally. However, I have always been taught to look for the helpers. In every tragedy, there are people doing good and that is how folks like me don’t lose all faith in humanity pretty much every single day. Instead, looking for those bright spots instills faith that all hope is not lost, and when there are no visible helpers, BECOME ONE. By taking up the mantle of HELPER, you empower other people to do the same. It is often uncomfortable and sometimes downright scary to be the helper, but it is so worth it in the end. Ripples become waves and we can change the world. We just must start with ourselves and work outward. In short, be the helper. Be the light. It can literally change the world.

With sincere gratitude, thank you for reading.

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