Invisible

Striking at the most inconvenient times is this feeling of invisibility, it sneaks up on me and settles over me like a bad magic cloak. It’s just a perception, just a feeling permeating my waking moments, and while it may not be real that doesn’t make it go away. I realize that when I break it down psychologically it stems from childhood and the abandonment issues that tend to creep in every now and then. The psychological attachment theory goes that because of what I lived through I must have insecure attachment in all of my relationships, and for the most part that seems to fit. In light of that knowledge it stands to reason then that this feeling is considered “normal”.

I grow a thicker skin every time this feeling pops up, a protective layer of proverbial bubble wrap to insulate me and then the cloak of invisibility to cover it. Dangerous sentences run through my mind, like “if they knew me at all” which means I have placed an expectation that people should know what I am thinking, feeling, etc. This expectation isn’t fair to anyone, no one can ever really know what another is thinking, feeling, etc unless it’s being communicated clearly and effectively, and even then sometimes it can be convoluted. Awareness of this is key to growing and becoming more secure in my outer as well as inner relationships. I think the more I face the feeling and try to understand it instead of allowing it to take over maybe one day it won’t.

Today in this moment I will choose to take off the cloak and try to analyze it, understand it, be in the moment with it and then fold it up and put it away.

Cloudy Days

 

I want to go play in these clouds.

Learning to Live Again…and Again..

 (Image by anarchy-camp.com)

It seems life lessons are never out of stock, they are there for  you no matter what. You are born, you learn to crawl before you walk and to talk usually before that, at least that’s how it went for me. Through all this learning I’ve sometimes found myself thinking will there ever be an end point, will there ever come a point when my brain says -ENOUGH! I CAN TAKE NO MORE! I surely hope not. I find that I’m constantly learning how to live over and over again, one path takes me one way, then I zig instead of zag and BAM! next thing I know I’m walking into walls with no windows or doors, just an endless hall way or sometimes a round room with no corners to hide in. I go passionately towards the thing that will fill me up the most and then fall flat on my face inches before reaching it. So, I learn to live again, changing over and over again to “fit” into something.

I’d really rather fit into my own skin. I’ve been fighting for life for 35 years, fighting instead of embracing. Who am I but the words floating around inside my head like little thought bubbles waiting to burst. What do I want? Why do I stop myself? I am the only roadblock in my own way right? Where does my worth lie? Why do I keep settling for what doesn’t actually serve to inspire me? How can I create that space in life? How can I learn to live again without fear?

Stories We Tell

I have been thinking lately about the stories we tell ourselves and each other about our lives, the impact we leave behind with each story and it’s ripple effect. In the end, it is what we all are- a story somewhere to someone. In the spirit of story-telling here is the beginning of one from me to you. Enjoy.

A place down a street and up a hill is where you’ll find her. She escapes to the quiet, deserted end of a road that puts her above the only place she’s ever called home. She drives down the street and up the hill to the crest, watching in her rearview mirror the lights get brighter against the black back drop of a starless night. Who needs stars when you have a city made of gold. She pulls over on the side of road, shuts the engine almost all the way off- leaving only enough energy to power the stereo, climbs out and sits on the hood waiting for the music to begin. She comes here to escape the noise of the city, to be as far away as possible, cloaked in darkness with nothing but her mind and music and the beautiful golden light. When you’re in the thick of it, you can’t see just how much beauty there is, that’s the funny thing about life.

Her mind drifts back to countless other times she’d been to this place- what was different now? Oh yes, she was alone. This place where she’d fallen in love and forgotten to say it, the words dancing in the shadows on her tongue never quite making their appearance  in the light. The time her heart broke into a million pieces and the pain so unbearable she couldn’t quite believe it belonged to her. This place held all of those memories and now it was time for something new. How can you begin to heal if you are stuck in the past position? This is the question begging for her attention.

To be continued…..

Hope In Despair (Pieces of Hope Series)

This is a blog post written by a very dear friend of mine, who as she states below, I’ve never actually met in person. Ah yes the beauty of the internet- bringing people who are thousands of miles apart together in an instant. I asked her to write something for my Pieces of Hope series and she did not disappoint. Her post below is about gaining hope in the face of despair, it is poignant, heart-strings-pulling, and most of all- honest. Thank you Matja Klaric for sharing yourself with us- much love to you.

June 15, 2014

“Not long ago, my dear friend Mesa (whom I have never met in person, but have strong affinity for, as if we knew each other for years) asked me to write something for this site. Although I was all for it, I could not force myself to start working on this blog for weeks. How could I wrote about hope, when I see every day as a struggle and I am constantly wondering do I have any hope left in me at all? What keeps me going, I do not know; you can believe me that I do not know how I manage to keep going after all I have been through during the last year and a half.

Is it that long already? Yes, it is… and there is still no end in sight.

But perhaps I am the right person to write about this exactly because I struggle so hard with finding the strength to keep going in the face of hopelessness and as hard as it is, I have managed to keep going and survive each and every single day for the last 18 months. That’s well over 500 days, well over 500 battles, well over 500 almost lost hopes that I still somehow managed not to lose (at least not entirely) up to this day.

Now that does not at all look impressive when one struggles with it on a daily basis, but when one looks back and realizes that she has managed to survive well over 500 days of agony, anguish, and pain, she realizes that this is in fact very impressive and quite an achievement.

Due to the paralyzing psychological pain that tends to be inseparable from the severe kind of life’s test and trails some (if not all) of us have to go through at least couple of times in our lives, I was not able to write a diary about what I was going through, as I felt so blocked with pain, even though I was well aware that writing would be advisable and of great help.

But now, today, on this yet another day in a row of very special over 500 days, when I realized how far I have gotten without giving up or harming myself, this awareness alone have pushed me to finally start to write it.

And so today, on June 15, 2014, I promise myself that I will push myself and write at least one sentence in a dairy of a soul who has almost lost hope and has to struggle daily not to let go…

Gratitude is a word of the day, and today it is dedicate to Mesa who inspired me and thus helped me to do this. Thank you Mesa.”

Stand Up For Better

Let’s be real with each other for a moment- no matter how much hope we have for the future and no matter how much we think “they” (they being govt, scientists, academics, etc..) can fix this, the brutally honest truth is- it’s going to take all of us as a collective to get anything done. No one is out there in an ivory tower coming up with solutions, the ivory tower folks are counting their bills with masks on while we suffocate on tainted air. We have to stand up for better. We have to demand change, we have to do it together. We have to see past the stupid labels and see each other as humans, not party lines, or sexual preferences, or even genders. We are all living on this planet together- realize that we have no where else to go, and if you believe in a heaven or hell- good for you, but don’t let that stop you from making this place the best we can. I have children, I refuse to believe that the world they are inheriting is doomed. I believe we are better than that, I believe we are much more capable than we give ourselves credit for, I believe in fighting for better.

A better world, a safer environment, a community that can thrive, those are real and possible. I don’t believe in a God who will come down to save us, I believe in having faith in each other and ourselves to create something different and better. I am not an angry “atheist” I am an angry human who sees injustice, harm, war, poverty, inequality, and empathy lacking humans who choose greed above all. I am angry and scared and sad and all at the same time- full of hope. I see the amazing things that humans have come up with to make things better, more efficient, safer for all. I am friends with some amazing people who inspire me to want to do more and be more for the this world, this planet, this rock that we live on flying through space that is our only home. If we could just see that this space that we inhabit that is polluted almost beyond repair is our home– it is the place where we rest our weary heads every night, it is the place where we share our meals with family and friends, it the place where hopes and dreams are made, it is the place where we breathe a sigh of relief after a long day, there is no other place like it. If we treated this planet as if it were our home we would not dump trash or toxic chemicals into our living rooms, so why do we do it outside? We would not treat a guest in our home with hatred and hostility, yet we treat others who are “different” that way outside of our living room walls- why?

We have a condition- the human condition, which is malleable, it is not a fixed condition. We can change and continue to change, that is the beauty of evolution. We are not different from each  other, we are only taught that we are, we all have the same basic needs, it’s not esoteric, it’s not spiritual, it’s humanness. We all need certain things to survive and thrive- food, water, shelter, compassion and empathy (or love depending on how you look at it), and cooperation. Cooperation is fostered by empathy and compassion, hence the reason for mirror neurons. Everything we’ve done as a species was to combat suffering, yet in the process we inadvertently created more suffering for the planet but using finite resources due to ignorance. We don’t have too be ignorant any longer, we know the differences now, and we have to be willing to stand up for better. We have to do it together. Will you join me?

Where did the time go?

We hear the phrase so often- where does/did the time go? We constantly feel like life is passing by in a blur or in my case  in a series of WTF’s per minute. Time is the funny thing we’re always chasing or running from, and yet in Einstein’s world it’s all relative and doesn’t really exist at all. That’s a rabbit hole for another day. Time is this magical place where you can backwards and forwards and stand still all at once, simply by thinking about it. Isn’t that kind of a neat thought? Time heals all wounds right? Time- the giant bandaid that helps you put yourself back together again.

What about when it comes to love? How does time affect/effect l.o.v.e.? Some would say time can make love grow stronger, others would say the complete opposite- love can be fleeting and time takes it away. In my 35 years of life I’ve experienced both. I’ve fallen in love in a day and fallen out of love in under a minute, time doesn’t seem to care how fickle the heart is.

I find the sensation of time fascinating, the feeling of movement in stillness, which technically is an illusion. Can you feel it passing? Can you feel it swirling all around you the incessant ticking of an unforeseen clock? I watch the seconds fly by on the atomic clock on the wall, the clock that keeps time to the beat of the Earth. The feeling that it’s running out is palpable. How many more seconds do we have left? And what are we doing with what we have? 

Ah yes- the ultimate question in the end, what will we do with what we have been given? Why do we wait until the end to always ask- where did the time go? 

Let’s Have A Conversation

 

Eye opening video and one that I hope will help us begin to challenge the ways in which we think.

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I am the eternal optimist and I am a firm believer in hope. This woman is an inspiration on both those counts!

Feminism? Beauty? What do those words mean..

 

Sometimes it’s quite refreshing to be reminded that we, women, are fine the way we are!