Regaining Lost Aspects: Mind and Soul
Through book events, poetry, and creativity, we dive a little deeper into humanity.
Life,
death.
Everything covers her.
She wants them both.
The growing need
it pushes her,
to do something
that most won’t.
She holds her death in one hand.
Seven pills in a fist.
It is funny that that is God’s number,
for he will be seeing her
after this.
Another poem from my past.
We all have goals. We all have dreams. We all have places we see ourselves in however many years, and in order to get to those things that we desire, we work hard for them. We push ourselves so we can have our dream body. We practice so we can be great writers, runners, dancers, workers, or whatever else we want to be near perfect at. We get frustrated. We get paranoid. We get to be really hard on ourselves when we aren’t as close to our achievements as we want to be. We start pinpointing all the flaws in our plans and our goals. We start detecting all the little imperfections we see in ourselves that we perceive as being in the way of what we want. We start putting ourselves down and bullying ourselves. We start making unfair judgments towards what to expect from ourselves. We start to become not a friend anymore to our body and soul, but a critic with harsh assessments. We start to lose focus on what is really important. We lose sight on why we are here living on this earth. We forget what keeps us up and what keeps us going. We no longer have fun.
Life isn’t about being perfect, flawless, or the best. Life is all about having fun while you do what you do. It is about making memories and enjoying yourself. It is about loving every step you take on your journey to become who you want to be. What is the point of doing the things we work so hard on and waste most of our life on if we aren’t enjoying ourselves while doing it? We only have this one lifetime that we will remember, why not fill it up with great memories? Why not have more to celebrate than just the fact that you reached your goal? Celebrate the fact that you reached your achievements and have a ton of fun recollections from the passage. Have fun! Celebrate life! Have a blast while you become the best you at whatever you want to be! Don’t fret over being the most perfect person that is ever around. You will only lose yourself in the process and when you get to where you want to be, you will feel empty and irritated at yourself for taking so much time to get to where you are, but not feeling how you expected to feel. Enjoy yourself! Love the life you are living! Love yourself! AND HAVE FUN!!!
Sometimes we aren’t born into the best kind of situations. Sometimes life isn’t fair for us the moment that we come out of the womb. Sometimes pure love isn’t what awaits us when we take our first breath. Sometimes instead we are faced with rejection and a pain that we won’t understand until we are old enough to comprehend and question it, if we ever can.
After being born into those types of situations where maybe you weren’t completely wanted by one or both parents, maybe you were thrown into a broken home, or maybe even before you turned five you started to be abused and molested, life slowly starts to beat you down and can make you feel more and more worthless as the years go by. You begin to question the purpose of your life and if you are only there for other people’s amusement and misuse. You begin to question what love is and how it is supposed to feel and whether it is something worth searching for. You begin to see yourself as a born failure that may never amount to anything because you feel like you were doomed to fail from the beginning. You find yourself labeled. You define yourself as a bastard, a disappointment, or a burden.
Feelings can’t always be helped, but actions can. Yes, life is extremely unfair at times. Yes, when you are knocked down right from the beginning it is harder than ever to get back up, especially when you don’t know what getting up feels like. Yes, it is hard to follow your goals and try to make something of yourself when you are surrounded by so many bad examples at the beginning and you view life differently than most everyone else.
The only way to overcome this sense of insecurity and resentment towards life and yourself is to focus on beating the odds. Focus on making yourself not another statistic. Make yourself someone not worth feeling sorry for. Make yourself one of those people who rise from the ashes and surprises everybody. Rise up. Rise above chance. Rise up above the circumstances. Make yourself worthy. Make yourself worth something to someone.
I personally hate the look of pity on people’s faces. If I get that look that tells me that they don’t think I can amount to much and that they give me a pass for failure. I don’t want an excuse to be able to fail. I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me. I want looks of complete shock that I was able to dig myself out of a hole and go further than anyone thought I could possibly go. I want to wipe away any sadness that anyone might have for me. I want to inspire and reach souls who are struggling and help them out of their holes they were born into. I want to be worthy of someone. I want to have a purpose.
So if you are struggling or have been struggling your entire life and can’t think of a good enough reason to get up and fight the circumstances, I have one for you. Do it to strive to be worth something to someone. You can be worthy. You can make a difference in someone’s life by showing them that not everyone born into bad situations are doomed to fail. You can show people just how strong you are and that the life your were thrown into wasn’t a penalty or something meant to slow you down, but something meant to make you stronger and help you become a warrior against chance. You can make a difference by being the difference. So, go out there and be the difference.
Here is another poem I did when I was younger and things were getting harder for myself to handle. This was near the beginning of when I started falling into one of my addictions that ended up later becoming the worst fight for my life. It is just crazy to me how many people had no idea what was happening and what I was doing until later when I had fallen in too far.
She can’t handle herself.
She’s starting to change.
Everything’s happening
and pushing her in vain.
She can’t stop herself.
She’s already tried.
And after she’s done it,
She just sits there and cries.
It has a hold of her now.
It’s controlling her life.
The addiction is what matters.
There’s nothing more in sight.
“No, you got to keep going.
You gotta fight through the pain,”
says a voice in her head
that’s starting to drain.
She hides it from her friends,
and her family has no clue.
They all see her changing,
but think it’s nothing new.
With no one to help her,
she’s losing the fight
and trying so hard
just to make it one more night.
There is nothing wrong with holding onto hope. It doesn’t make you silly, stupid, or unwise. I know many people will tell you to let go and that things will never change so you need to get over it, but why let go of something that keeps your head up and keeps you driving forward? Why let go of something that keeps you motivated to work towards your goal and better yourself? Why give up on something that might be just within your reach?
In some situations that we find ourselves stuck in, hope ends up being our only glue, the only thing that keeps our hearts from breaking and keeps us from falling apart and going insane. Many people do not understand that. I don’t know if they think that they are thinking more logically in thinking that “if something isn’t going to change why pursue it and waste your time and energy?”. But I ask you, why not? If it is something that you really want, why not keep moving forward towards it? If nothing has been working, why not find different solutions and ways to approach it? Why not challenge yourself and think outside the box?
Even if you never get the one thing you have been hoping for, by never giving up on it you may find yourself someday somewhere that you never thought you would be. You could find yourself stronger and better than you ever imagined. You could find yourself a whole new person that you had grown into because you refused to give up hope and refused to sit around only wishing for the things you had hoped for and regretting giving up on them.
I say hold onto hope like it is a lifeline. If you are stuck underground in some kind of avalanche waiting for someone to rescue you, don’t give up hope and let your soul die in despair. Think positively and be hopeful because you never know, the thing you are hoping for may come in the moments you were willing to hold on a little while longer.
If you are being bullied and are hoping that things will stop. Don’t let go of that hope. The moment that you held on a little longer could be the moment that you end up finding a true friend that helps you through your pain.
If you are hoping that a family member will come back around someday. Don’t give up hope. That moment that you held on a little longer could be the moment they come back and then your heart will be ready and more open to accept them back into your life again without wasting too much time on anger or resentment.
Why let the journey to the one thing that you hope for be filled completely with sadness and dread? The moment that you give up hope, life comes crashing down around you in a sea of negativity and sorrow. Why let that happen? Why not hold onto the hope that maybe some day your desire will come to be? Why not come to the realization that life doesn’t have to be filled with anger, resentment, or sadness because you never know, someday the thing that you want to happen may happen. Come to the realization that if you live your life to the best of your ability then if the thing you want was meant to come to be, it will. If you get happy enough with yourself and your life you may even find yourself not wanting the thing that you have hoped for anymore and instead of sorrow and regret when you had let your hope go when it wasn’t ready to be let go yet, you may find it fading away leaving you happy and feeling lighter and still just as, if not more, fulfilled with life and yourself.
I’m not saying let the one thing you hope for consume you. Have more than one goal. Have more than one thing you are hopeful for. Have many things that you want to reach, achieve, love, and survive long enough to see. I’m saying that holding onto hope till your last breath isn’t a bad thing. I’m saying hold onto hope until the thing that you wanted so bad isn’t a thing that you see yourself wanting anymore. Hold onto hope so you can keep your head up and eyes held high looking forward living life and seeing the many blessings in it.
Hope carries us. If hope is holding out her hand, do not let go, let her guide you to a better place. Let her guide you to a place without darkness, depression, and unfulfilled needs. Embrace her and love her for what she is and what she gives all of us, comfort, peace, and motivation. Use her to keep you going to where you want to be. Even if where you end up is different than you had envisioned, it is better to had ended up there full of hope and love than going no where filled with dread and regret.
Keep surprising yourself! I know this really surprised me the other day. Things really do pay off, even in ways we might not expect. Just keep looking for the little surprises and excitements in everything you do and in your lifelong journeys to your different goals. The surprises and excitements can keep you motivated and moving forward!
One thing that is hard for everyone and anyone to deal with is illness. It is difficult knowing that you could feel “normal” and enjoy every little ounce of life, but you feel like you can’t because you have some malady holding you back. It is hard constantly having your body remind you that you are sick and tired making it near impossible to ignore your illness that is screaming at you to have a bad time. It doesn’t matter if you just got the illness or if you have been living with an illness for what seems like forever. It always sucks and it always hard to deal with.
I was diagnosed with my chronic disease when I was really little. Most people get hypothyroidism when they are older, but I was one of the “lucky” few to get it when I was a kid. Being a child and having to get poked with needles all the time and having to take a pill everyday to stay afloat and feel OK, sucked. And it still sucks today. It sucks knowing that my life and enjoyment depends on that pill. It sucks knowing that one day that pill might stop working for me like my Synthroid decided to randomly stop working years ago. It sucks knowing that I will never get better and that everyday I have to push myself harder than most people to have the body that I want. It sucks not understanding my emotions most of the time and getting depressed when I have absolutely no reason to be depressed at all anymore. And it sucks even worse when you find out you also have an autoimmune disease, and that now your body has decided to start attacking your thyroid when it already was having a hard time doing its job before. So illnesses suck. Any which kind of illness sucks and any which kind of illness is hard to deal with.
Besides the fact that it is harder to enjoy yourself and do what you need to do with an illness, it are also scary because you don’t know what to expect. Our bodies are amazing, but have many flaws. All we can do when we have an illness is to just try to deal with it in the best way possible and try to find the good things in as many things as we possibly can. But it is OK and there is no reason at all to feel guilty for sometimes wanting to give up, for sometimes feeling bad for yourself, for sometimes feeling angry at the world, or for sometimes crying your eyes out for something that you cannot change. Illness is not fair. We didn’t ask for it. We sometimes didn’t even do anything to deserve it. We are only human and our minds, like our bodies can only take so much and sometimes needs a little break from being strong and should be allowed to let go for a second. You are allowed to cry. You are allowed to scream. You are allowed to stop holding up the world for a brief moment so you can catch your breath.
I’m not saying completely give up and that life isn’t worth living when you have an illness. The opposite is actually true because on your good days, which we all have, things are more precious and more enjoyable than they typically would have been because you have fought so hard to be standing where you are at the moment to enjoy them. All I am saying is it is OK to let yourself feel for a moment. It is OK to acknowledge that life isn’t fair before you tackle your dreams. It is OK to be sick because sick or not you matter, and you will become the best person you can be and we will all look up to you for it. Illnesses suck, but you don’t have to suck along with it.
This is something I wrote when I was in middle school. It definitely shows how lost and dark I was, which happily I’m not so much anymore. It does get better! You can get better! The pain that this character refused to deal with, well I finally dealt and faced a lot of it and it released me from hell.
She sits in her room,
alone on her bed.
She can’t handle the pain.
She wants it to spread.
Spread like butter,
butter on toast.
Spread on joy,
on moments she won’t.
Won’t forget.
Will love forever.
She looks at the sunset.
She takes in the weather.
The weather of rain.
The days all messed up.
The pond is green.
The ducks throwing up.
She still looks for joy,
and turns to the sun.
The sun though disappears,
and then it is gone.
The moon is what’s left.
In it is peace.
The light, it shines down.
Makes everything at ease.
Darkness surrounds her.
She still feels the pain.
Can’t rely on the weather.
Can’t rely on the day.
They won’t make her happy.
She has to do it herself.
She has to remain stable,
and figure this out.
Why she feels so empty,
so lonely inside.
Why no one’s with her.
Why alone she cries.
She looks at the clock.
Past midnight. Can’t sleep.
Tears off the covers,
and gets to her feet.
As soon as she steps down.
She falls through a black hole.
She’s now in a sewer,
which is all damp and cold.
She shivers in chills,
her hair soaken wet.
Her teeth they chatter,
won’t break from a sweat.
Scared to move,
she’s pushed by a force.
A force in the darkness.
Forward, she’s marched.
As she glides through the tunnel.
Pants soaked, swishing through.
She reaches the ending,
nothing but gloom.
She touches the concrete.
The bricks on the wall.
She puts her head against it.
She wants to fix all.
Then a noise, it startles.
She turns with a start.
Black webs grab her feet,
from the water it warps.
It’s sticky like cobwebs.
It cuts her, all pain.
It brings her to her knees.
She screams as she lays.
Lays back in the water.
Face searching for air.
The web grabs her shoulders.
She tenses and bears.
Bears all the darkness.
As it covers her face.
Covers her eyes.
No point of escape.
It then pulls her under.
No longer can breath.
Black webs all covering her.
A cocoon, ready to feed.
To eat all the pain.
Pain withheld inside.
Which she was keeping all in,
and let her dreams decide.
Dreams decide her fate,
how to get it all out
No more relying on others.
No more relying on self.
Her fate came to darkness.
Her fate equaled death.
If she just dealt with her problems,
it wouldn’t have meant…
She wouldn’t have met the tunnel.
She wouldn’t have met hell.
Hell came to take her.
She’s wrapped in its swells.
Slowly devoured,
played with till dead.
She’s feeding it’s hunger,
the pain that she kept.
I know we hear it ALL the time. Stretch in the morning. Stretch before you work out. Stretch after you work out. Take some time in the day to stretch. Make sure you stretch.
Well, you hear that all the time for a reason! It is EXTREMELY beneficial for you!
First off, WAY less injuries and I know this from experience. I used to not stretch. I used to tell myself that I didn’t have time and didn’t need it even with all the things that I was doing each day. I run, bike, and lift weights and for some reason I still thought that I didn’t need to stretch. Then slowly as I got older the pain started happening. First, it was in my knees. I got runners knee pretty bad in both knees over and over again and I could not figure out why. I changed up how I ran. I wore a knee brace when I ran or worked out. I even took some time off, but the pain still kept coming back. Then my feet started to hurt and I became scared to death that I was going to plantar fasciitis like my mom and that that was going to slow me down with my fitness goals. After changing shoes, the pain still came and went.
Then after doing research I found out that what may have been causing all of my pains and injuries were tight muscles. My muscles around my knees could have been too tight that they were pulling at my joints constantly giving them strain that they couldn’t handle and didn’t need. My calf muscles could have been too tight that they were pulling at the tendons on my feet making it hurtful to walk.
Finally, I gave in and started to stretch. Slowly my knees and feet stopped hurting, and I was able to go months without any pain at all. Also, when I did get pain somewhere I was able to make it go away a lot faster than before. But my biggest complaint I have had most of my life was lower back pain. It was where I felt like my hips were stuck to my spine making it hard to sleep or sit still. Happily, after a few weeks of stretching the most amazing thing kept happening. It got to the point that during every stretch routine I was able to extend my spine and decompress it making it pop out in several places that left me with this amazing relief like I was floating on air and standing taller. So, stretch if you want to escape from some of your bodies ache and pains that are making life harder to enjoy!
Another thing that I have found that stretching does for me is it helps me relax and fall asleep faster. You may think that you don’t have time to stretch and that it isn’t worth the “time wasted” like I did, until you think about the logic of doing it before bed. Typically, before I started stretching right before I crawled into bed to sleep, I would lay awake for hours tossing and turning, muscles cramping up, back aching, and mind racing. When I finally started to take the time to stretch and I went to bed, my muscles were all relaxed and happy, my mind was calm from focusing solely on my muscles and was ready for a deep sleep, and my back was pleasantly comfortable and ready to rest before tackling the next day. With my body nice, calm, stretched out, and happy I have been able to fall asleep within ten minutes or less! So spending fifteen to twenty minutes stretching and making my body blissful to save me from spending hours of tossing and turning seems very logical to me.
I could go on and on with all the scientific reasoning that stretching is also important, but those you can look up for yourself. I just wanted to give you my experience in life so far with stretching and how my life had been without it. Just know that any little bit of stretching is better than nothing. Plus you never know, you may find something in your short five minutes you had planned that you really love to stretch and slowly your stretching sessions will become longer and longer and include more muscle groups!
So, FOR REAL, Stretch!!!
Don’t let the refusal to forgive someone or something hold you back from the happiness that is just within your reach. Holding onto anger or blame puts a dark spot on your soul that only becomes bigger with each passing vexed thoughts. Holding onto that dark spot gives it the control it needs to slowly eat away at your well being, leaving you driven only by your anger or hatred towards someone or something.
Let yourself heal. Know that we are all human and make mistakes. Know that getting hurt is just part of the journey to make you who you are meant to be. Know that it is more than possible to take control and forgive, so you can better yourself and fight through the pain with you coming out on top.
Do you really want to waste time thinking over that person? Do you really want to waste time being angry instead of feeling love towards the people who really matter? You need to forgive, so you can spend your time and your thoughts on the things and people in your life that matter most.
You are meant for bigger and better things than holding onto a vendetta towards something in your past that won’t ever change. Use your energy to forgive and heal yourself. Don’t waste your life focused on something that will only hold you back and cause you to never push forward and never reach your full potential.
Refuse not to heal. Refuse not to get better. Refuse not to let go. Do yourself a favor and heal yourself because you deserve it and are worth it. Do yourself a favor and forgive.
Regaining Lost Aspects: Mind and Soul 