Regaining Lost Aspects: Mind and Soul
Through book events, poetry, and creativity, we dive a little deeper into humanity.
Therapy doesn’t work like I thought it would. I don’t leave a session crestfallen, but broken, memories on the surface of my mind. But sometimes you need to rebreak something to heal it right. Sometimes the hardest part of healing is rewiring your brain to love yourself.
Pieces of her writing and and words shove me through the page until I am there and have to blink away the vision, shocked that words could grab me so. Not talent, no. But the ability to craft a reader to a writer’s soul.
I actually wrote this about an author whose book I am currently reading. I am not done reading the book yet, but I hope the ending is as beautiful and as grasping as her writing. Let’s give a shoutout to the artists who inspire other artists and keep the magickal flow of passion dancing in us all.
Book I am reading: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
Lost in my River of Dreams,
warring against the current that propels me in directions I don’t want to go,
I drown in sorrows of failure, but have glorious breath when my face rises.
I hope to reach a time where air is a given
and dreams become the land where I can walk.
May we all reach that land where we can live out our dreams and not be lost in the river forever. Keep fighting, keep rising for breath, and keep against the current that tries to pull you under.
Most times a “dope”
Who sticks to his “dopey” things
Will make everyone out to be “dopes” in the end.
Examples:
*Gamers grow to make world-known games
*Someone who can’t communicate grows to help millions of kids learn to connect
*The class clown becomes a famous comedian
Then there is you. Stick to your passions and follow your dreams.
(Thought after the sad poem, I would write something funny / inspiring thanks to a #vss prompt this morning. The message : Don’t Judge. Not even yourself. Keep being you and keep following your passions because they may be the clearest road to your dreams <3)
I play the ventriloquist.
Begging you for help.
But I don’t let you see
the words forming from my mouth.
I need you to step in,
when I’m sinking in to do’s.
House work, school work, three children.
Way too much to do.
Sports take all evening.
E-learning takes all day.
Let’s not forget meal prepping
and bathing not too late.
Myself is losing focus.
Forgetting who I am.
No time for self reflection.
No time for where I stand.
This is for the parents out there struggling. I feel you. We normally live a very busy life with three daughters and we have a very busy schedule. Lately along with the rest of the world, our lives have gotten way more stressful and chaotic as we fight to do the right things while trying not to take away from the children. I choose to live a very full life with them and right now with them all so young it is very easy to lose who I am. I am so very thankful and lucky to have a husband who battles time along with me to help save my self identity. He helps me make time and pushes me to follow my dreams so that after parenthood I will not have lost myself. I know that not everyone has that. So if you do not have that person, you need to be that person. As hard as it is to find time for yourself and for your goals, you need to keep on fighting. You are YOUR savior. I choose to conquer one small goal at a time each day no matter how small. You can do the same. You can do that and be in this battle right along with me and countless others to save our true selves who we have pushed away. We are all in this Battle for Self Identity together all fighting our own obstacles. We can have the role of parent and take on the smaller battles until we have time to tackle the bigger ones when we can focus more on ourselves. You can do both. You can be a parent and fight not losing yourself. Just work on not letting your true self slip away behind all the chores, sports, cooking, cleaning, and mile long lists. We are in this together. Be true to yourself, forgive yourself, and know that you are YOUR savior. Give yourself time.
Writing can be intimidating. With every single sentence and every single word we write, we often begin to second guess ourselves. Especially if what we are writing is for more eyes than our own. How are we supposed to get away from that, especially if we are wanting to become professional writers? Do we ever break away from that? Is that something that just follows us forever? Will we ever have enough confidence in ourselves just to write?
We have this mold. And this mold is the self that we want to shape ourselves into and how we believe we should be seen. It is a container held in by our fear. The fear that if you step out of this shape that people will hate you, that you will get rejected, that your ideas won’t be competent enough, and that you will find out once and for all that you as a person and a writer aren’t good enough. Because of that we end up living in these little boxes only sharing and showing the same things over and over again that we know fit into this mold and that everyone likes. It is hard to step out. It is hard to be unique. It is hard to be ourselves. It is hard just to have fun writing.
Like writing this. It is hard. You can bet I am nervous. It is hard to write just what I want to write and to have enough confidence in myself to share it. It is hard to even speak my ideas, let alone let myself build up these great plans that I know I love and think are fantastic, but for some reason can’t help but to think what if other people don’t feel the same way? It is hard to step away from the fear of being proven wrong and feeling my already own shaky self-image start to crumble. It is hard to ignore all the self-doubts in my head and shove them aside just to have fun writing.
But the real question is what if no one gets to love and experience your brilliance and your ideas? What if you could really get somewhere and be great? What if you are holding yourself back from the amazing person you already are?
What do you do?
The only answer I have for you to be able to break through is to WRITE. Just write. And have fun doing it. We all know that writing fills up the soul in ways nothing else can, but what we don’t know is each time you write you become braver. You gain more courage and strength to speak your words because if you did it once, you can do it again, and again, and again, and show the world and yourself that you have a voice. That you have courage. That you have passion. And that each time you can break more from your mold. Every time I give myself permission to just write what I want and just let myself fall into my love for writing it becomes easier, like a muscle needing worked.
Let your writing break your mold for you. Let it slip through the cracks and test the waters so you can realize that you are safe and you are ok and you can put yourself out to the world. Let yourself prove to yourself that you can be who you are, write what you want, and have fun doing it! That your uniqueness is something that can be craved.
My mold that keeps me from sharing and spreading my ideas, my stories, my worlds, and my escapes every day begins to break and crack. And personally, writing and sharing this has been more for myself than anyone else. It is a nice reminder to look back on and to hold myself up to. My own words to live by. If I hadn’t written this, where would I be today?
Confined by my mold.
But instead I am working on breaking free.
     So, as you can see my husband worked a lot and nonstop so he could build the dream life he wants for himself and his family. He still continues to do this to this day, but so far things have gotten better. Throughout the years though it was not easy waiting with the heart breaking for the one you love to return and fill you with the love you so desperately needed to be filled up with again to keep going. My husband is a hero in my eyes, not just for working as hard as he has forever for us, but for fixing me and getting me to the point where I can actually look at myself in the mirror and not completely hate myself. He helped me get to a place where I never thought or dreamed I could have ever gotten to. I can actually love and enjoy life now and focus on my goals instead of battling with myself mentally and physically every day. I truly owe him my life. But as I said, the journey was not easy. There were a few times that depression and loneliness started to work deep into my mind and made things harder than they needed to be. Not today, but Tuesday I will continue this with some of the more deeply broken poems where I started to lose hope that things would ever get better and I started to lose faith in our bond. Â
(Sorry about there being no spaces between paragraphs and poems. For some reason it won’t let me fix it and it only wants to stay this way. Except for this last paragraph.)
What fills you up? What helps you feel alive and at your best? What makes you feel whole and at peace? These question were brought to my attention this last weekend. It was something that I never really stopped and completely thought about. So I ask myself and I ask you those same questions. What fills you up? For me, knowledge, reading, fantasy, and stories are some of the things that make me who I am. When I dive into those things, they help me feel like I am finding myself, figuring out myself, and learning more about myself. What makes you feel alive and at your best? For me, working out, eating healthy, alone time to sort through my thoughts, writing, and doing things for my kids like planning their parties and making them things, all make me feel alive and like I am on the top of my game and living at my best. What makes you feel whole and at peace? Well for me, that answer is time with my kids and family.
Why are all these questions important? Because the answers tell you what you need to prioritize in your life. They are things that you need to make sure that you make time for you so you can feel your best. When you feel your best, you live your best, and when you live your best, you enjoy life more and get more out of life. I know that I want to walk around feeling alive and full of spirit and happiness. I want to enjoy my kids more and enjoy time with my husband more. I want to get the most out of everything I can in this small amount of time that we have to live, and how am I supposed to do that if I feel like crap? How is anyone supposed to do that when they feel sad, depressed, exhausted, and stretched too thin. After a long week it is amazing what time with my family does for me. I feel ready to tackle another long week yet again. It is like a constant emptying me and filling me back up. It is amazing how good I feel after a workout in the morning. It helps fill me back up and gets me ready to tackle another day after feeling like I’ve gotten beaten down too many times the day before and had begun to feel weak and worthless. It is amazing what reading and researching does for me because it fills my head with amazing creativity that helps me see many things in different ways and enjoy life more without getting bored or frustrated.
Find the things that make you feel like the best you. Find the things that make you feel happy with yourself and with your life. Find what those things are and then make it a priority to make sure you have some time for those things. Live life at your fullest and at your best so you can enjoy it more and be happy. Search within yourself and then prioritize so you can be the best you. You deserve it and the world deserves to see it.
This is going to be an interesting post. I wouldn’t normally write I guess what you could maybe call a “review” on a show, although I do have many opinions on a lot of shows, but this show caught me by surprise. I had just finished New Girl and needed a new comedy to watch on Netflix because I was not yet ready to dive into my usual dramas and deal with being tear jerked around. So, I decided to try to watch a show that I figured I would end up hating and give up on. When I was a senior, a parent of someone I lived with briefly, used to watch The Office all the time. I tried to watch it with her one day, Â but did not find it humorous at all and could not get into it. I pretty much found it annoying, useless, and a waste of time. For some reason though, I decided to give it another chance almost ten years later and watch it from the beginning. I was truly blown away with all the lessons that it had embedded into it, especially the most important one it focused on.
So, of course I’m not going to give away any spoilers from this show. Letting that be known now, but for anyone who doesn’t know, it is a show that takes place in a paper company. It is about some pretty unique, yet in some areas, average people all working together in an office together. Sounds pretty boring, right? Yet somehow they made it interesting and a little funny. From the beginning to the end, you get to watch the employees all work together to try to make the most out of their boring jobs and their life. They grow close together like a family, help bring one another up, and share many special moments together. It definitely brightens your mood and makes you see that even in the most boring jobs and places in life that there is a lot more going on if you look hard enough and that those places really aren’t that boring at all.
The thing that grasped my attention throughout the whole show was the message that no matter how many times you get knocked down, you need to get back up and stay positive no matter the situation or circumstance. You find your purpose in life and you keep trying to achieve that no matter what life throws your way because at some point you will most likely get there or even someplace better than you thought you could.
My favorite character in the show that showed me this was surprisingly Dwight. At the beginning, I was like “I’m going to hate this dude”, but he ended up being one of the biggest go getters, respectful, loyal, a good friend, and more caring than most of the people in the show. Throughout most of the entire show he is picked on by Jim tremendously, but somehow he does not let that slow him down or get him down. Every prank and every day he gets himself back up and pursues his goals towards gaining respect from his peers and his career. He was a true inspiration for me.
One of my other favorite characters was Michael. Although his humor was pretty rude, you could tell he had a good heart and no matter how left out or hated he felt he still kept trying to make people happy and laugh. He had said multiple times in the show that his biggest goal in life was to make his “family”, which was the people he worked with, laugh and enjoy their life. Even though most of the time he made them hate their lives, he still worked very hard to show everyone how much he saw them as family, and everyone but one person he worked with, saw and noticed that. His dream was to belong somewhere and have a family and he never gave up on that dream.
Pam’s goal in life was to follow her dreams to become an artist. Many many times she was put down for her work, not supported by the people whose support mattered the most to her, and she failed herself multiple times which only brought her down about herself even more. But even though she kept letting herself be let down and kept putting herself down for periods of time, she always ended up making herself pick herself back up and keep focused on her dream, which did end up paying off more than she could have imagined in the end. Following and staying focused on her dream made her finally feel worthy and important in life, which had been having trouble with since the beginning of the series.
The last person I’m going to talk about, even though there are many I could, is the obvious character in the series who never gave up going after his dream, Jim. Jim’s dream was love. He wanted to love and be loved by somebody and never fully gave up on that vision for his future. Even when things started to go south for a period of time and he was close to losing that dream forever, he gave up one of the things that mattered almost as much to him to focus on getting that dream back. He is an amazing example of ‘if you love something, go after it’.
I could pinpoint every character and talk about how they emphasized in the show to never give up, but I’m not going to. If you really want to know, I would watch it. It may surprise you. The reason why I am writing this is because it surprised me and there may be someone out there not willing to give the show a chance, but who may really need it in their lives to help them keep going.
Make it your life goal to inspire people. Constantly work on being that person who people look at and go, “WOW”. If everyone kept in mind that we are meant to build each other up and encourage each other, then everyone could keep inspiring one another until we have all succeeded and gone further in life and as a human race than we ever had before. If we all worked on being our own individual bests and focused on being inspirations, we could reach out and help people without even realizing it. We could motivate people to work on finding the best ways to live and do things that would make them happier. We could strengthen one another by giving each other hope that it is possible to accomplish goals and live an ideal and happy life no matter what anyone has been through. We should want to be the type of people that people see and think to themselves, “well, if they can do that or be that happy, then I can do this and be as happy.” We should want to inspire and spread hope for as many people as we can. We should want to be uplifting and influential. If we aim to be influential and inspirational, then not only could we inspire others, motivate, and change the world, but we would also be making ourselves happy and loving life in the process by doing what we love and being the best that we can be. Inspiration is what makes the world keep moving and changes lives. Inspiration is what keeps people uplifted and their dreams big. Be an inspiration. Live to inspire. Inspire to inspire.
Regaining Lost Aspects: Mind and Soul 