Tag: experience

Thriving with Time

Oh my gosh I know it’s been forever since I sat down and wrote! Of course, just like for everyone, the holidays were full of travel, and decisions, so much purchasing, and lots and lots of stuff going on. We are also creating a new room in our garage, so boxes and papers and life seems to be exploding all over the place.

My husband and I sat down the other day and started our ‘cabin work,’ that we usually save for actually being in a cabin around New Years. This year that time will be later in the month, but we needed to start now. On our couch. We have so many elements that are needing to be organized and labeled with a system that both of us have been getting overwhelmed.

Here is my favorite change we are implementing:
*Building our schedules with our personal needs/desires/dreams/and of course self care added FIRST. This is a huge change! Usually we have been at the mercy of whatever fires need to be put out for the kids, or the room being built, or the buildings we are managing, that we don’t get to do the things that ACTUALLY GIVE US ENERGY AND JOY. So,… these things go on first. Then the other stuff that isn’t so much fun, goes around the sides. We are hoping that this gives us a good foundation so that everything we want to ACHIEVE/WORK ON/CREATE/EXPERIENCE/GROW INTO,… actually gets the attention that it deserves so that we feel we are moving ahead in our lives. Yesssssss….

It’s so hard to know HOW to organize our time, isn’t it? I mean we all have the same amount of time everyday, and yet at least over here, it seems like if we aren’t conscious about how we spend it, the time can easily drain, drizzle, fizzle away with nothing to show for it.

This year I am hoping to be more respectful of my time and more aware of WHAT I am doing, HOW I am doing it, and WHY I am doing it, so that life feels a bit more intentional.

Especially since there is a baby on the way! 😉 We are both so excited, and yet this is making it even more clear that having schedules that make sense BEFORE little one comes can help us feel successful now. Since I know that once the end of June comes around, all bets are off. 🙂

How is your personal schedule going? Are you leaving time for self care and everything your body/mind/spirit needs to thrive and be your best?

 

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Get Lost

After all these years of feeling inadequate because I didn’t follow a concrete PLAN, I am finally relishing my wild spirit that enjoys getting lost.

Maybe not knowing the next step is okay.

Maybe allowing myself to burst with excitement about something obscure and unique is wonderful.

Maybe the dark alleyways and strange curiosities that I noticed and didn’t ignore, but instead:
choose to check out,
look into,
spy on,
research,
investigate,
and experience
helped me choose to finally enjoy the rebellious, inquisitive, marvelous mind of wonder that. I. have.

 

 

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Beautiful

I would love my bonus daughter to feel good in her own skin. To enjoy who she is as a human, and know that she is enough.

But I also know that she is 13, and just at the BEGINNING of weirdness and possibly a push/pull relationship with her body.

So how can I help? What can I do to make it better or guide her to see her beautiful spirit and not just the fact that she doesn’t fit the societal MOLD of what is considered beautiful?

I know I need to talk to her more about it than I have been.

But there are a lot of different thoughts running through my mind. I don’t know if SHOWERING her with compliments is the way for her to see her true power.

  • I was given a lot of compliments on my looks as a kid, and I didn’t believe any of them.
  • I felt ugly even though I was told I was beautiful.
  • Feeling truly beautiful is when we don’t need to be TOLD them from other people, we just feel our own power. So telling her a lot isn’t necessarily going to convince her.
  • I know I had a very different experience related to beauty growing up than she is. And yet I didn’t feel good about myself at all. I’d like to share more with her, and maybe remind her that one day, as she’s living more her truth, she will see her pure beauty.
  • I like the idea of using the compliment of ‘beautiful’ related to being kind and loving, like I read someone blogging. That it doesn’t need to only represent outer appearance.
  • Maybe I can remind her that as I have gotten older, the times when I actually FEEL beautiful are when I just stood up for myself, or when I am doing something where I am so present and immersed in it, I lose myself. I feel solid and enough and beautiful.
  • Maybe I can also tell her that just having people think you are ‘pretty’ isn’t that helpful if you don’t believe them.
  • People will always have different opinions about beauty anyway. If we are swayed back and forth if someone sees it and the next person doesn’t, we won’t feel beautiful. Beauty starts deep inside US.
  • I can also remind her that the times when I feel ugly are when I don’t speak up for myself, when I swallow my feelings and when I am trying to be different than I am.
  • Some of the most beautiful people I know do not fit societies standards of beautiful. In fact, 99.9% of people don’t fit those standards, and we can find beauty in everyone.
  • Remind her that there have been so many times that I would see someone and be swept up in their beauty and then created a story in my head about how their life must be so much better than mine, etc. And how loved they must be, etc. Once I got to know them I realized that they were going through similar things as me. There life wasn’t any better because I thought they were pretty.

Those of you that have girls, what is your experience?

I can see that not telling someone they are beautiful because of the fear that they will think that is all they are, may not be the best decision either. Maybe there is a happy medium where they are told they are beautiful but they are also told their are brave and kind and loving and strong.

 

I would love to hear your thoughts!!

xo

 

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Becoming Younger

Hello everyone! Happy Monday! I try and get on here at least once a week on Monday’s. But last Monday my hubby and I were visiting his parents, so I wasn’t able to. 😦 Sheesh, it feels like it’s been FOREVER since I’ve written!

I was thinking about something a couple of days ago that I wanted to write about. I remember turning 25 and feeling this horrible rolling pain of insecurity, disgust, and panic. I was so afraid that I was getting OLD, running out of time and had nothing to show for it. It’s so funny to look back and realize how young I actually was.

Society (and social media lez be honest) tells us (subconsciously and blatantly) what we SHOULD have:

  1. Accomplished
  2. Experienced
  3. Purchased

by the time we are 21, or 25, or 30, or 35 or 40 and so on.

I know most of us get involved in some way or another in this anxious fear that:
Where we are isn’t right.
What we are doing isn’t enough.
Who we are isn’t okay.

Something that I am grateful for lately especially, is paving my own way, and enjoying it. I’ve always paved my own way, I’ve always created my own path, but I usually felt ashamed about doing it. I usually felt embarrassed and different and wrong.

Lately, I am seeing my creative veering spirit as a gift. I am finally acknowledging that I have never followed the herd, and that maybe that is okay. Maybe that is in fact PERFECT,.. for me. Maybe I have everything I need right now in this moment. Slowly, all of the yucky phrases I used to say to myself like: ‘You should have done more, you aren’t doing enough, you are wrong, you are bad, you must be lazy, you are different, you are ugly…’ are fading.

If I had to guess, I would say here is why that is happening:

  1. I’m making self care my top priority. I am constantly checking in with how I feel, and treating myself the way I would to a small child. If I am tired, I will take a nap. If I feel emotional, I will cry. I don’t need to know why, I don’t need to figure it out. And I certainly don’t tell myself that it’s silly.
  2. I’m allowing myself to feel the depth of my joy when I am doing the things that I love. For some reason this has been a hard one for me! Even when I am doing art, there is a tendency to check my texts, suddenly do a google search, or look through my email. Making art brings me so much unbelievable joy, but there has been a part of me that didn’t feel I deserve it. So instead, I stop messing with my phone, tune into what my soul is saying and what my an immense amount of joy actually feels like.
  3. Meditation. Okay so I’ve said that I meditate every morning. But that’s not entirely true. Every morning I have gone into my meditation closet with the intention of meditating. But also every morning my super sweet, yet annoying cat also comes in with me and spends the whole time climbing across my lap and meowing into my face. Most of my ‘meditation’ time has been used up quieting him and inside getting so so fucking irritated. Anyway,… now, I am spending the early session (with him climbing on me) acknowledging and listing everything I am grateful for. He loves the energy in my meditation room and eventually relaxes, but I am no longer pushing against him or needing him to be different. A little later in the morning when Nova is sleeping, I sit down to do my actual meditation. This way I can have a really wonderful meditation with no interruptus. 😉 Also I am using Deepak Chopra’s 30 day challenge that I found on YouTube.

It’s so funny how I felt so terrified and old and wrong when I was 25, and in this moment I am 13 years older. 
I actually feel a thousand times more grounded, more grateful, more creative, more solid, more reverent, more brave, way more attractive, and with a knowing that gifts are continuously coming from the Universe.

I feel like it really is true that age is just a number, and we can become younger, calmer, stronger, lighter, and more patient.

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Passion and then WHAT?

I have always been excited about life. I have always been curious and fascinated and desiring to experience all. Of. It.

But one thing held me back from saying yes to EVERYTHING.

Art.

As interested and enamored and in awe as I have always been with the nuances of life, I also knew that if I ‘took on’ everything that caught my attention, there was a chance I would end up a shell that didn’t have any time for the one thing that fills me up more than most everything.

Making art. 

So I didn’t commit.

I didn’t take that class or research, or learn the things that gently knocked on my heart.

I’d get swept up for just a moment fantasizing about something new and adventurous, and at the last second I would decide not to take the plunge and explore down a different path.

When one has lived their life skipping from one piece of passion to another, and only moving forward when it’s hot and sizzling and wild, that are pieces that might have gotten missed.

I never followed a path that I laid out before me. Moving through it, sometimes slowly, just to get to the end. I would stop half way if it felt anything less than mountains moving.

I think in some ways I recognized that I had something really great. There are many people that don’t feel PASSION at all. The fact that I have it, I should probably hold onto it with tight fingers.
Hide it.
Keep it safe.
Make sure it doesn’t slip away, or worse, have it feel as if I am ungrateful or don’t care.

I guess by me always choosing art first AND ONLY, I felt like I was honoring the passion inside me. But I can see now that I was not respecting all parts of me.

I was always leaving the gnawing, whispering, playful questions at the backdoor. Unattended to. 

Maybe if I pursue/learn/dive in to all these new exciting curiosities, they may not feel the way art does.

Is that okay?

Maybe creating art is supposed to feel different for me. Maybe it will always be the place I can re-find me. Where I can curl up and breathe life back into my soul. Maybe that doesn’t happen with every activity/hobby/interest that I have.

Maybe these interests will STILL enhance my life.

Maybe I will STILL learn more about myself and my gifts.

As I ask myself these questions, I’ve decided that I no longer want to deny urges I have to experience life.
This year will be different.
This year I will move forward even with small quivers of my curiosities.
I will trust that what I’m curious about is there for a reason.

I will trust that there is so much more to discover about myself.

I will trust that life isn’t only buzzing, passionate smoldering energy. It is the space between as well. It is the not knowing, it is the dark lonely paths and uncharted heaviness. It is the light moments of joy that may not be connected to any depth.

I am going to discover all of those parts of myself as well.

Yea for the journey! Wow! I didn’t even know what I was going to write about when I sat down. This is what is so healing about writing. This blog is way more for me than anyone else. I am okay with no one ever reading it. What I get from just writing out my feelings is so phenomenal. If anyone happens to read it and understand or something connected for them through it, that’s great. But it’s not why I’m doing it. I love linking these thoughts and feelings together and walking away with a better understanding of who I am and what I want out of life. Yessssssssssss!

What have you discovered lately about yourself?

 

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Unorthodox Mandala

If you look up the definition of ‘mandala,’ you will see that it represents the search for ‘completeness’ and ‘self-unity’. Though I love these concepts, I am realizing in my life, that the search for that, or rather the experience of them is NEVER a perfect evolution, a perfect circle. There is a constant ebb and flow and one step forward and two steps back. I feel like it’s much more accurate to demonstrate our lifelong journey of learning and growth in a form that is a bit more organic. This is something I am in the process of creating, and I’m not sure if I should fill the page, or leave it as it is. I will add the final photo when I decide. I would like to do more of them!

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