What is love?

“It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams in a shell and, giving out nothing, receive nothing and therefore shrink until life is a mere living death.” 

~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Take control of your life and face your fears!

Are you letting fear control you, your emotions or even your life? I certainly have been guilty of it. Fear causes us to react in ways that are self harming to our quality of life. 

 

I have a friend who is so scared of letting someone love him that he will purposely at any cost use whatever words or actions necessary to keep love away. He has not learned to love without expectation. He has a fear of change and these fears simply cannot and will not lead to an overall happy life. He does not love himself so how can he possibly be capable of loving someone else? Like a broken record he plays the "I'm not good enough" record over and over in his mind. He has been living in a dark place for a long time and playing that record over and over...and believes it.  He has worked very hard to make himself believe he is not worthy of his own happiness. He has spent years building a wall...a fortress around him that prevents light and love from reaching him.  He has placed himself in a deep, dark pit and sits in solitude. At times he puts on a mask and ventures out only to save face so that he may keep up the façade that he is happy. They do not know the real him and he is ok with it. He gets up, goes to work and on weekends drinks himself into oblivion to numb any feelings he may have...whether they are good or bad.  See, on a Monday he is a self proclaimed "fall down drunk alcoholic" and by the weekend he is saying "it's not that bad." It is a sad, lonely existence indeed and he thinks he deserves it.

 

So many let fear stop them from achieving love, success and personal goals in their lives.  Face your fears head on because you are worth it. Do not spend your life trying to live up to others expectations of who they feel you should be. Stop playing the "I'm not good enough" record and get up, get out and find yourself. Carve your own path out and follow your instincts. Face those fears and maybe you will find that they are not so scary and intimidating after all. Learn to love the wonderful person that you are and let love into your heart. Take control of your life, stop making excuses and face your fears!  

 

   

Love, grace and gratitude

“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, or worn. It is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace & gratitude.” - Denis Waitley

 

A beautiful life

You will see how truly beautiful this life is if you learn to love yourself. It can change in the way you see the world. It is a journey of self discovery. Believe in yourself and start that journey today.  

Living in the present

So many carry the burdens of the past with them. They cling into old memories and a turbulent past. Some live in fear of their uncertain future. What is most important is to live now in the present. 

Yes, the past happened. Yes, the future is uncertain. Accept and say to yourself that what matters is now. I know it is hard not to keep reliving what happened to you. Your feelings are validated, but to find peace you have to practice forgiveness. This does not mean that what happened to you was right, but by forgiving you can free yourself. It seems like we remember the bad times more often than the good times. Like a movie the negative thoughts play over and over in your mind, in your dreams and daydreams. You are putting out negative thinking and negative energy. You will get back what you are sending out into the Universe. Look around and you may see yourself in the negative people you are surrounding yourself with. They too are living in the past, the future, but not the present. Live for today.

Look what scares you in the face...

"Look what scares you in the face and try to understand it. Empathy, I have learned, is revolutionary." - Jane Fonda 

Lost souls trying to find their way

I want to ask that you stay humble. Be patient with those trying to find their way. Always leave a guiding light in your heart on for them. Anticipate that they will find their way home through the storm...eventually.  Remember that you too were once lost and struggling to keep your head above water in an seemingly endless sea.  Never give up on them.

- Peace for the Tortured Soul

Hitting rock bottom and climbing your way to the top

There you lay at the bottom of a deep, dark pit of despair.  You have never felt so down and so low.  This is it... you have hit "rock bottom." You know that this is IT. There comes a time when those who are struggling find themselves at what society calls rock bottom. Years of depression, struggles, traumatic events...they all have potential to drag you into that deep, dark pit. Then before you know it there you are at the lowest point in your life.

Now as bleak as this sounds some do not make it out.  You have two sides to the story.  Those who hit rock bottom sometimes choose an out.  That out is suicide.  Heartbreaking for those who lost their way. Then others who hit rock bottom choose life. What drives someone at the very edge to crawl their way out of a seemingly never ending pit? I can speak from personal experience and I will tell you what...the will to live. I can remember so clearly the feeling, that tiny voice inside me screaming. I did not know it at that time, but it was my soul crying out.

Why do some make it out and some not?  Perhaps there was a bigger plan for those dear souls. Can anyone really answer that question? All I can say is that I am here.  I AM ALIVE. When the chips were stacked against me I somehow made it. I have been to hell and back and from it learned empathy.

I feel that healing cannot start until you have hit that low. You have to live it and feel it and see it. You have to want to get out of that pit and never return to it again. Now the real work begins. Blood, sweat and tears. A journey into self discovery. Accept that you need guidance and seek out that guidance whether it be psychiatric help, group therapy, books, message boards, online communities or just telling a friend or family member how you feel. You may just happen to find yourself 14 years later writing a blog about your experiences of hitting rock bottom and finding your way to the top. 

Small victories and large defeats

I sit here
drunk now.
I am
a series of
small victories
and large defeats
and I am as
amazed
as any other
that
I have gotten
from there to
here
without committing murder
or being
murdered;
without
having ended up in the
madhouse.

as I drink alone
again tonight
my soul despite all the past
agony
thanks all the gods
who were not
there
for me
then.

-Charles Bukowski, The People Look Like Flowers at Last

You have to walk through the storm

Think about situations in your lifetime that have prepared you for who you are today. What has conditioned you for present day situations? Back then they may have had you asking "why?" or "why me?" You may have thought you were having bad luck and felt you were at a low point in your life, but somehow you made it through. Think about connecting the dots from the past. What people or situations were placed in your life path? How did those people and/or situations teach you lessons for future situations? 

 

You have to walk through the storm...

 

"Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.

And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.

And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about."

 

Haruki Murakami - Kafka on the Shore

Exploding clam chowder

Exploding clam chowder in the microwave has lightened my mood. It was only on 70% power! Still laughing...

Awakening, signs and self discovery

I was raised with no religion.  Growing up I did not have a belief system and I was ok with that because it was all that I knew. 

 

Initially, when I had my awakening it started with a series of events that happened over two years time.  At first I disregarded, made excuses and ignored certain signs. As time passed and certain people were being placed in my path I started to question a lot of things. By the end of the year I realized what the purpose was of all those people that randomly came into my life with similar messages.  This was no coincidence. 

 

Often when one is awakened it starts like a door has been cracked open.  Soon the door opens more and more and then you have a snowball effect.  The more the door opens the more you start to notice signs that you wouldn't have noticed otherwise.  This is what I mean when I say "awakening." Soon you feel like you are living life and thinking on a whole other level.  I call it the next level. 

 

I felt robbed at first...robbed of being not being able to see the world in such a new and beautiful light all these years.  The various people who came into my life planted a seed.  It was up to me to feed and water that seed.  At first, I was not ready as so many are.  Sometimes it can take years to fully become aware and accept that you are having an awakening. 

 

Recently, I spoke with an old friend and he explained that he was in a dead end relationship, depressed, having problems with high blood pressure and going down a path which he felt was leading to alcoholism. A visit to the dentist office ended with the dentist saying that he must be under a great deal of stress because he was grinding his teeth in his sleep.  Apparently grinding to the point that he needed a lot of dental work because of it.  He is what I would call a "people pleaser." He is full of kindness, empathy, love and helping others.  Often in his past he has encountered blood sucking opportunists who used him. He admits that he is kind and generous to a fault. He has been dating and living with a women who stifled his creative and eccentric nature.  To the extent that if she felt he was rambling and talking to much she would tell him to stop talking. She had suggested that if he met someone and wanted to have relations on the side he could.  She had crashed and totaled her car some years ago and had been driving his car since the accident.  He had brought up to her over the years that she needed to look for a new car, but she continued to drive his car.

 

Many years ago I knew him as a creative, free thinking individual.  Now he is shell of who he once was.  He is currently working on his self worth and his own awakening.  He thought he was ready to move forward and change.  He even went so far as to end his dead end relationship and guess what...within a few weeks she went out and purchased a new car.  Initially, his ex asked to stay with him for a month to have time to find her own apartment.  He agreed.  Now, she is still living in his apartment and he is staying in the second bedroom.  This is an example of having an awakening, but not yet being ready to accept it and change.  If you cannot be the change you wish to see then how can change happen? 

 

“When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.”

   
― Paulo Coelho, The Devil and Miss Prym