When things go wrong, don't go with them.

Sometimes things happen in life and we find ourselves hurting for years and years and years after. Our experiences have so much impact on us, and sometimes the impact runs deeper than we realize.

Please understand that the things that have happened in your life do not have the power to hurt you anymore. This is such a hard truth to grasp sometimes. You see, it is not the experience that is still hurting us, but the stories that we continue to tell ourselves about the experience that continue to hurt us.

No matter what happened in your life you never deserved to be hurt. You never deserved to lose anything. You never deserved to be treated badly. You never deserved to get sick. You are a beautiful soul who lived through the experience of being hurt or losing something. You are a beautiful soul who lived through the experience of being treated badly or who got sick. You entered into that experience as a beautiful soul, and you exited that experience as a beautiful soul, and you gained wisdom through that experience. You are a beautiful soul living through experiences and that is what life is all about.

When we lose people or things, it is natural to grieve over those things. But if you are still hurting over an old experience because you are beating yourself up over why it happened or why it didn't happen.....if you are believing that this experience means that you are not as good or as important as others....if you are believing that an old experience has created a situation that prohibits you from ever being able to change or to be happy again. These are beliefs that you must change.

It is so good and wise to take our experiences and extract the helpful wisdom from them, extract the useful lessons, and  then let the rest go. WE ALL LIVE THROUGH ALL SORTS OF EXPERIENCES, and many of them are difficult. When things go wrong...it doesn't mean that you are all wrong as human being. When we have bad experiences, it doesn't mean that we are bad.

You are a beautiful soul. You always have been and you always will be. Please believe it.

decide.

Sometimes you just have to decide that you have had enough. Sometimes you just have to make that completely solid decision that enough is enough and that things absolutely, positively have to change....and you have to make that decision before anything else can happen.

And sometimes...you have to hit a pretty rock hard place to finally get to that decision...to finally get to that place where things are painful enough that you will do anything to change them.

You see, you have to DECIDE that you are DONE feeling rotten, or you are done getting treated badly,or you are done being taken advantage of, or you are done being overweight, or you are done doing a job that you can’t stand, or that you are done hurting yourself. And you are the only one who can really decide that for you.

So, thank those times that get you to that place. Thank the rock hard places that wake you up and make you finally decide that enough is enough. Instead of cursing those experiences and those times in your life, thank them for getting you to finally decide to do the right, but difficult things that will get you to where you want to be. 

Because once you decide.....everything changes. Once you decide to finally believe the truth that you are as valuable and important as everyone else...that happiness is meant for you too....that your soul has always been meant for peace.....once you decide, you can do it.

It won’t be easy...but staying where you don’t belong is far more difficult. When enough is enough, be brave and listen to your soul. Listen to Truth. Go where the peace is. 

unwritten

There are things in my mind.

Things I can't find the words to say.

Things I don't know how to write.

Things that are trapped inside me, and only me.

Sometimes I long to share these things.

But when I try, I feel it only comes out wrong.

I can't express the feelings I feel anymore.

The things happening inside of me.

Because I'm not quite sure even I understand them.

Yet they are me.

And I, them.

These unwritten words have come to shape me.

To be me.

They invade my thoughts and guide my hands.

They cause me to see clearly...but at times cause my mind to fog.

They stay inside my head and only mine.

I try to let them out.

But despite every part of my being they seem to control...they can't quite leave the tip of my tongue.

They remain merely that. The tip.

And I live in fear that the tip will topple over.

And my emotions will spill out.

And what will become of my mask? Broken.

And my heart?

Who knows.

But I like to know.

I feel I need to know.

To be secure.

But what is security, really?

Who is secure?

Without faith, there is no security.

And these feelings can get in the way of my faith.

But they can also guide it.

Faith and the unspoken part of me?

Together they could become strength.

But where is the hand that will show me my strength?

Is it in me? Like they all say.

Where inside of me is it?

Behind the mask?

Beneath the fog?

Or has it been there all along?

In front of my eyes.

On the tip of my tongue.

In the depths of my heart.

All around me.

And inside me.

Inside us all.

Is the hand this unwritten part of me?

The part I have to find for myself?

Could it be that this hand is not the key...but the part of me that needs unlocking?

And it is this key that I have to find.

With the unwritten words. And the unspoken feelings.

Together with faith.

There is my key.

And the part to unlock?

Is it me?

Don't let it change you.

I saw it in your eyes that day; I don't know why I never saw it before, but suddenly their blue depths were a mirror and I could look straight into the thoughts you allowed me to see. As you laid beside me on the grass, and as you looked up at me, I saw the anticipation for life and the beating of your heart which kept time to your laugh. We jumped into the piles of leaves and tried to make the most noise, and I felt like I was reconnecting with a part of me that I had pushed down for so long. You made me feel alive again, but here is the truth: I've gotten lost somewhere between the pain and yearning for healing. I let myself wander, but I never quite came home. And I'm working on being found, but sometimes recovering takes much longer than the wounds take to form a scar. And I have always been the one who evaluates every pain and heartache; I study what I feel and I find myself among the flaming orange leaves that leave a trail for me to follow. But sometimes I am reckless. I dive in without thinking, I rush off without wondering how I will get back, and sometimes... I think that's okay. It's like driving down a road and having no idea where you are going, it's an adventure. You can have your eyes closed, but you will never see the light of day; and I think that doing the things you are afraid of is the first step to healing. I hate being vulnerable and that is something that never used to keep me back from loving, but that was when I was your age. And now I find myself hiding in the shadows, and holding back; I keep my heart and sit as far away as I can, but that makes for the loneliest hearts. And I'm learning to let go; I'm finding the freedom in spreading my wings and facing fear, but nobody ever said it was easy. And now, as I am looking into your eyes that are filled with happiness and the expectation that everything is going to work out, I realize that you are ahead of me by a mile. Your eyes tell the story of your love and fearlessness, but your very distinct vulnerability. Yet you aren't afraid of being vulnerable, instead, it makes you cling so much closer to those you love. And I just want to tell you to never change. One day you will open your eyes and you will realize that this world is a cruel place, that bad things happen to good people, and that you have no control over anything. But see, that's when you stand. You brush off the negativity, and the small thinkers; you dare to dream big and you accept life the way it is, and find joy in it. Don't let the hurt put out your flame, but don't ever brush off the pain. Pain and joy are both beautiful things, and you want to go through life with your eyes wide open. (because it really is a beautiful place) Do the things you are afraid of, and step out of your shell. Keep your sense of expectation, because it really is going to get better. And don't ever lose your sense of wonder, or your laugh. One day, your laugh will keep someone alive. Dear little boy, please don't ever change. (you don't have to.) 

You may say I'm a dreamer.

Lately I've been living in a world of fictional stories and impossible romance. I've lost myself in other worlds hoping to escape the reality of my own. It's not even that my real life is all that bad or stressful, I just would much rather reside inside these pages of books. I find a fantastic wonder among these tales. It makes me wonder if I'll ever find love so irresistibly true. There must be at least some truth to every imaginary image. Each idea, I believe, has to at least be rooted in a real life experience, memory or feeling. And with that, I believe in imaginative ideals. I believe that true love exists. I believe that I, as an individual, can use my unique attributes to contribute to the world. I believe that I, in fact, can change the world. I believe in all things good. I believe that we can become whatever we want if we try hard enough. That is why I love living in these fantastical worlds, because I'm a dreamer, and I have this weird obsession with turning dreams into realities. Some might say I'm crazy, but in the end, it's the crazy ones, not the normal, that end up changing the world.

Open your eyes.

There’s a gift I can give to you even though you’re not the gift loving type. It’s a small offering a single contribution a wrapper-free and bow-less box filled with something you never asked for but maybe you’ve always needed.
This is my gift to you:
I’ll be the eyes to see what you don’t and I’ll be the voice that fills the ears deaf to those things for too many nights and too many days that followed. This is my tribute to all you don’t see, to the parentheses around your smile and the way laughter slithers from your lips and curls the corners of your mouth like they’re tied to hidden kites flying in hidden skies.
Open your eyes.
This is to how your feet throw heat and warm mine and how the sensation of calm can literally travel from your fingertip to my fingertips and up my arms into my chest.  How the sight of you catching sight of me is enough to set my heart sprinting. To the sheer volume of that heart’s beating and the way it fills the room with noise like the sound of flags flapping in the wind, or broken songs beating through broken speakers, this is to all you don’t see,
Open your eyes.
This is to the sound of my name in your mouth the way it dances off your tongue and leapfrogs through the air to find me again.  To the whispers and the screams, and the muted mumblings of your tired morning voice and the words you don’t remember saying and the ones you do. This is to the heart that’s too big for your body and to your body that’s too small to hold all your dreams. To the ballet of beauty that fills the empty moments of your sleeping and the sunlight that paints your face to pull you from it.
Open your eyes.
I’ll be the eyes to see what you can’t the constellations of freckles and beauty marks and the forgotten scars from forgotten wounds. The hair that hangs like curtains over the windows of your eyes and the light that streams in from behind them from some other place better than here the beckons me to follow.  To the pace of your breath and the warmth of it on my cheeks and to the tracing of fingers on the valleys of my back.
This is my gift to you, and you’re not the gift loving type. A tribute to the details you forget to notice and picture they create. This is to you, all of you and what you are to all of me. To the me you help create and shape and heal and change for all the right reasons
at all the right times.
Open your eyes.

dreamer.

Remember when you thought anything was possible?

It still is.

For some, dreams are nothing but a fleeting wish, a desire for something out of reach. For others it's the reason we live. 

I'm a dreamer in a world of realities, but that does not mean my dreams will not one day become my reality. I simply push the limits of the confines of reasonable, and that is what makes this world beautiful. It is not the realists who create the new or discover the unknown, rather it is the dreamers that shatter the sphere of possible. Think of all the record-breakers, the renowned scientists, the inventors, the famous--they all have a little dreamer in them, and without that dreamer they would not be. I dream of traveling the world, capturing the memories through a 4x4 lens and crafting words and images on blank sheets of paper to later share with the world. I dream of helping those less fortunate than I to find a better life. I dream of finding the man of my dreams so we can support each other, and together seize our dreams. I dream and dream and while I dream I have to remember I have to take action, I have to work to make these dreams come true.

So today's the day I'll stop letting my dreams be just that---dreams, I'm now a dreamer determined to be a realist. 

What is the similarity between one who says, "I can" and one who says, "I can't"?...

...They are both usually right.