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. 

Not all those who wander are lost.

Are you going to retreat in the comfort of being what you've always been, doing what you've always done, turning your head from the great unknown. Or are you going to step forward and venture to find new heights, new views. When you're standing on the ledge, you have the option to jump...there might not be a way back, but do you really want to go back. No. Bend your knees, summon your courage, spread your arms as if they are wings and accept the fact that you don't know the consequences, and sometimes thats okay. It's called a leap of faith for a reason. What's worse: wondering what could have been, or falling in a little dirt and having to pick yourself up before continuing this journey? 

No regrets, people. Let's do this.

Let's be the people that venture into the unknown and find something completely different, something new, something exciting. Don't let fear hinder your potential, and don't let someone tell you the limits of your potential. Sure we're going to stumble along the way, but don't let that keep you down. At least when we fall, we're still moving forward.

I dare you.

No more wasted days spent waiting for better tomorrows. I want my journal to be bulging with pages full of lovely things and precious moments worth remembering. I want each day of my life defined by something special. Fifty years from now, as I'm skimming through the words scrawled upon the pages of that dusty old journal with glasses perched upon my nose, I want to be able to smile and say, "Ah, I remember that cool November night.. he kissed me and I just didn't know what to do," or "That weekend I read that entire book in just two days." Or maybe even, "That was my favorite day of all. I just lounged beneath the sun on a frayed old blanket and just let the beauty of the world around me soak into my skin." One day, I want to read about the life I've lived, and I want it to be the most magical fairytale of them all.

Why not make today a day worth remembering? It's unfair to remember one day, and let another slip into the land of lost and forgotten things. If you find yourself sitting on your bed at the conclusion of each day with the silence of the night pressing against your ears and a mind filled with nothing but emptiness, you've failed yourself. Each day should be a day worth writing about. Each day should have at least a sentence to be remembered by. 

Scatter colorful drawing across your driveway, get chalk dust the color of rainbows on your eyelashes. Brave the thunderstorm with nothing but bare feet and a sundress; let the raindrops get tangled up in your hair. Sit beneath an ancient tree with a book, and read until your head aches and your fingers are raw from turning pages. Paint a picture with your toes. Eat a popsicle upside down.

With each new day, dare to do something so strange, so abnormal, so exhilarating, or something just so impossibly simple that it will be impossible to forget. And then, when the moon replaces the sun in the vast blue sky, and the stars twinkle ever so delicately above, let the words flow from your head all the way down to your fingers where they can be transferred onto the page of your journal. One day, your memories may be your greatest treasures. You get to create your own life story; so why not make it one worth writing down?

Over exposed yet never understood

Funny how, as humans, we tend to hear one story and link that single story to the entirety of another person. During our lifetime, we will never know the entirety of someone else. We will never know every second that they live, every trial they face, every thought they think. So why is it that we are so quick to judge others and categorize them according to, perhaps, this single story once heard about them?  The only person we can ever fully come to understand and know completely is ourselves, and, unfortunately, some people even miss out on that opportunity. People can talk and talk about one single person, and they can label them by one single story, people can pretend that they know everything about someone else, but in reality, we all live a somewhat secret life, we all have our own individual worlds with unique experiences, people, perspectives, and thoughts. We're all still human beings, that's true, yet we often compare our complete knowledge about ourselves to the partial knowledge about someone else. Sometime we think of ourselves having the hardest life, the best justification to be mad, the busiest life, the superlative-est in every situation-- we forget that others have their own story too.

//My number one pet peeve is gossiping. Gossiping does no one any good and all you're doing is taking a partial segment of someone's story and using it to define them. That is not fair. Think of how much better this world would be if we put aside all the prejudices, judgements, and rumors and just accepted people for who they are and tried to see things from their perspective.

 If I have learned one thing from life, it's this:
live in a way that if someone was to talk bad about you, no one would believe it. 

I'm rambling.

I don't really know if my inability to let go completely came early in my childhood or whether it's been formulated from so many years of being emotionally irresponsible. Lately, though, it's another one of those elements in my life that is not so satisfying in its current state.

I keep going back...way back. Was I overly attached to any tangible object? My baby blanket that took me years to finally get rid of? The pictures of people that are no longer in my life stacked in drawers waiting for a moment of weakness to be drearily thumbed through? Or was it losing my parents at such a young age? 

No matter, this inability to let go has absolutely hindered so many opportunities in my life. Relationships that don't work but give me enough peace of mind to hold on to a tiny shred of hope. Thoughts that clutter my already busy head. Feelings of inadequacy and insecurity that stem from my need to squash whatever happiness is around me. I feel as if all of these emotions and actions directly stem from this desire I have to keep negativity grounded within me.

And it's driving me insane because as much as I want to let go of all these hindrances, there is a great security in holding everything as tight as possible.

So, what is the secret? Writing it out? I've made my lists. Reading another book? Been there. I think that the secret is really, honestly just letting it go knowing that you can only control yourself. That I am teetering on making a huge life change that can only be done if I truly want to and then taking the steps to get EXACTLY what I am after.

I think this may be the mantra for the day since happiness really only does come from within first.

expectations

In the wake of my recovery and likely my precipitous road to it, I have become painfully aware of the expectations I set for myself on many levels. I wish to succeed professionally, attain true honesty within my heart and soul and live my life with happiness. The standards may be lofty as I truly believe something great is on the brink of emulating from the growth and awareness I am gaining. I just wish, in my lack of ability for self-effacingness, that I figure out what the hell this brink is and how to get there. It confuses me. I find that the closer I come to realizing this maturity and ability to achieve all levels of the success I strive for, the harder I try to sabotage it.

I am more comfortable with self deprecation than I am with self adaptation. Yet, there is a part of me that understands that this is a process we all go through (some of us actually go through this during childhood and adolescence...think I skipped that class) and that when we let go of the fear, life becomes possible. I have been neither ready or willing to let go of fear without paying my own price. Immediately, I will bring myself back into a space that doesn't allow for movement. Trapped within my own fear. And this fear is what I am looking to use as my weapon in battling the life I deserve and want with great passion. I'm out here swinging and in my dolorous armor, I'm slow on the life uptake. Sometimes I think I should just hit myself and get over it. And I think that more and more everyday (something must be working).

So, do I compromise and lower the expectations I have set for myself and my "lofty" ambitions? I don't think so. Do I get a life and start doing what I'm meant to do? You're goddamn right.

The more we do to truly be who we want and what we want, the more "greatness" emulates. And that, to me, is a pretty attainable goal.

Letting go takes love.

To let go does not mean to stop caring,
it means I can't do it for someone else.
To let go is not to cut myself off,
it's the realization I can't control another.
To let go is not to enable,
but allow learning from natural consequences.
To let go is to admit powerlessness,
which means the outcome is not in my hands.
To let go is not to try to change or blame another,
it's to make the most of myself.
To let go is not to care for,
but to care about.
To let go is not to fix,
but to be supportive.
To let go is not to judge,
but to allow another to be a human being.
To let go is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes,
but to allow others to affect their destinies.
To let go is not to be protective,
it's to permit another to face reality.
To let go is not to deny,
but to accept.
To let go is not to nag, scold or argue,
but instead to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.

To let go is not to adjust everything to my desires,
but to take each day as it comes and cherish myself in it.
To let go is not to criticize or regulate anybody,
but to try to become what I dream I can be.
To let go is not to regret the past,
but to grow and live for the future.
To let go is to fear less and love more.

Remember..the time to love is short.

They say there's linings made of silver.

"How do you explain broken?" she whispered quietly into the darkness.
Because in her mind there were no words that could ever adequately begin to capture the emptiness she felt.
An emptiness so deep, and dark, the blackest water of the ocean floor looked like the sun in comparison.
It was like she forgot how to feel, how to think, how to breath, how to function.
And yet she continued to exist.

Pushing away any memory that crept into her thoughts, burying them so deep, she doubted she'd be able to find them again.
But the demons, no matter how she tried she could not rid herself of them.
It haunted her relentlessly.
Refusing to dissipate, refusing to lose its clarity, they stayed.
And so she slipped deeper into the blanket of pain that engulfed her, fell deeper into the oblivion that held her.

But slowly, ever so slowly, she rose to the surface.
Inch by inch her soul came closer, closer to feeling the warmth of the sun again.
She grew stronger and stronger, fortified by her affidavit that this was the last time she'd feel this way.
She would not turn around.
She would not give away the ground she'd fought so hard to win back.

Because for the first time in a long time,
she felt like a person. Her own person.
And after all this time,
she finally liked who she was becoming.

trust

Trust.

Last night, I had one of those amazingly lucid light bulb moments 
that seem to come far and in between lately, with the lights in my brain
kind of flickering on and off due to a multitude of distractions.

I was having a conversation with someone and I suddenly 
realized that I questioned whether or not I trusted this person.
It was a weird sequence of events. I started thinking that I didn't trust them 
to behave rationally and in the healthiest manner when it came to conflict. 
And then, suddenly, I had a flashback to someone essentially
telling ME the same thing. That I was unable to be trusted.
Then, the light bulb went off. I suddenly understood that my own definition
of trust and my defensive reaction to being questioned in the past
really stemmed from not understanding the true meaning of what it is to trust someone.

In addiction, trust is not the most prominent trait in those who are afflicted.
Personally, I have had one hell of time learning to trust myself.
In the past, I've lied, made up reasons and justifications to fit my own behavior.
Trusting myself came far down the list of reasons not be so self-deprecating.
And in turn, I rarely paid attention to the actual meaning of trust as
it applies to emotional well-being. When I was told I was not trustworthy,
it was so much more than just not stealing or lying, my own interpretation.
And, because I was so defensive when told, I never even bothered to ask
for a definition as it related to a given situation. I sit here and shake my head
at my absolute ignorance.

I spent some time looking up various definitions of trust;
confidence, absolute certainty in trustworthiness of another, belief, faith, reliance.

Whereas my definition of trust bordered on naivety (you trust someone not to steal
your belongings), I suppose it's been defensiveness that has not allowed me
to look at myself and what others could possibly interpret trust as.

I see now that trusting someone means that you know that they
will be able to handle themselves with rationality and strength. That trust
comes with being open to someone else and learning what their needs are,
communicating fears and hopes without defense or reaction.

I'm simply amazed that I just never got this. I've had it explained and talked
about so many different times in so many different types of relationships.
I just adamantly refused to acknowledge that trust comes deep within and starts with oneself. 
What an exhausting epiphany it's been in the last twenty four hours!

And so begins the process of just trusting the emotions I have first
and foremost. That my strength and will to be in my life will manifest itself
through the actions I take. That when things get bad, I am fully capable
of handling a situation with the grace and esteem that I have truly come to possess.

And in doing so, trusting others will be a constant shining instead of 
the flickering light that's been in serious need of a bulb change.

The porch.

Just about 9 years ago, I used to sit on my front porch while in the throes of my early days of being consistently inebriated, waiting. I was waiting for the inevitable to happen; for my parents to come back. I would sit and wait and count cars for hours. It was quite possibly one of the most miserable periods of my life. I had made bad choices. I was lamenting over and over the years I spent spiraling down faster and faster. I was so far removed from being healthy because I was in so much pain.

I remember the pain from this time, it's been creeping up on me over the last week for a variety of reasons. I can still feel the angst of being emotionally comatose because I was simply so lost within my miserable life. I blamed everyone. I wished for a life that I didn't really want in the first place. I took anything and everything personally. I spent time in relationships that never should have happened. Love eluded me. Life confused the hell out of me. And to boot, I was always in a state of self medication.

And I would just sit and watch my life go by, wondering when something would happen to change it. Ha, good luck, I think now.

Fast forward to yesterday, I sat on a different porch last night watching the sunset. I felt a resurgence of this waiting as variables have come into play that remind me of my old life so many years ago. The thoughts of years ago have been forefront and I am amazed at how aware I've become at recognizing them. This time, I was on the porch reminding myself of where I am in my life. Where I've come from. No longer am I waiting for my life to pass by but rather letting those things that are no longer conducive to good health simply pass by my transom. It's refreshing to know this.

And it's amazing to know that my life isn't passing by at all.

The demise.

As there are many cycles in our lives, I find one cycle within sobriety that has been resonating over and over again in the last year. Over the last few weeks, I have been dealing with my ever questioning state of sobriety with a scowl and intermittent indifference. The cycle of questions that force me to look at where I am in my life and what I truly need to be happy and content with the decisions I make. Formulate a plan. Let go of the past. Live life with gusto. Be sober. Be happy. And my addicted self, all the while, is hanging on my back like a bad relationship causing great distress.

The reality is, I am simply growing extremely tired of not being able to truly let go of all the baggage that came with the person I had been. Tired of writing and talking about letting go when, in fact, it hasn't happen on the level that I am seeking. My resistance to let go and just be who I am causes great frustration. And that, in turn, leads me to quickly blame sobriety and how miserable I may perceive it to be. It's an incredibly vicious cycle and one that, if not rectified, can lead to allowing the addicted self to take over.

Not good.

Yesterday, I cried for about an hour sitting at the computer unable to write anything about being sober. I just didn't have the desire to write about it. I've been avoiding it altogether because, again like a bad relationship, my addictive self has been screaming at my sober self a lot lately. And the noise is driving me batty.

Last night, I decided to just off my addictive self. Dead, killed, it's over. If I don't, I may just sit here arguing with myself for the rest of my life. And that will likely either drive me totally insane or lead to a massive bender that will destroy everything I have desired in my life. So, I'm giving my addictive self a nice funeral today. It's time. The demise has happened. Buried, gone, see you later.

Life is too short. Life is way too good (well, the economy and job situation could improve, but hey, it is what it is). Being sober is far too important in my life to allow baggage to weigh me down.

Today, it's another new day. Another cycle...and another stepping stone to happiness that is well deserved.

Control

Early on, I believe that we establish what it is to sense whether or not we are in control. Cognitively, it feels better to be in control, ones ego is in check and we are then able to perceive growth and maintain a sense of balance, regardless of the situation. 

As we grow older, we establish specific patterns stemming from this early sense that allow us to remain in check emotionally, physically and beyond. Even if it's some kind of ordered chaos, there is always present a sense of being able to navigate through a multitude of life situations. 

When we lose control is the time the real test of integral thinking comes into play. Losing control seriously challenges people to look at themselves and then look far beyond to gain perspective. And, for me personally, it continues to be one of the biggest learning experiences ever.

You literally have to lose control of a situation to understand what drives you. What allows you to be as healthy and productive as possible when you cannot put your hand within reach. Where do you derive strength to undertake the tremendous ability of letting go and not allowing control to define you. It's seriously mind blowing to someone who has looked at control as immeasurable false protection from pain, not realizing how much of the situation wasn't mine to control in the first place and how imperative it is to just give it up, ego rebalanced and space allowed for immeasurable growth. Absolutely freaking mind blowing as I experience this more and more, wanting that space and re-balance but holding on to it for dear life for fear of pain. 

It's ego. And as someone who has spent most of my adult life in some kind of addiction, the ego is a very fragile being. To just allow things to happen, to the ego, is rough. To the soul, it's truly necessary. It gives the two diametric opposites a chance to rest and intertwine once again. Definitely a challenge.

But I'm learning that just as that control is necessary for balance, so is letting go, if only briefly to recoup the senses. You just choose the elements that are the most balanced at that time and focus there. You let go of the rest.

And I believe when this happens, you wake up with less of a proverbial mental hangover and gain just a SHRED of clarity.

Imagine that.

The wall.

This morning, a friend wrote this to me:

"...powerful is your default state, you just let the CRAP overtake you, like vines creeping up a wall. You're the wall. The vines are your insecurities..." 

It's been a tumultuous week with several notable minor but annoying meltdowns to enhance the overall drama level. I've shed some tears, fought outright panic and lived with a sense of complete anxiety in the span of about twelve days. Nothing overly dramatic or out of the ordinary but enough to cause me a heightened sense of angst.

It's not the meltdowns, tears or panic that really infuriate me. It's the propensity I have for defensively reverting back to something I used to liken to putting up walls. The reality is, I am the wall. I immediately allow the stress and question to define me. The vines can grow within 24 hours and I am then expending energy to get rid of them instead of learning to keep the walls down. I panic. I forget that I really am defying life's challenges by taking all that is adverse and creating something fabulous. And throughout my life, that's really what I do.

The reality, again, is that I have done tremendous work in my life, on many levels, and to allow myself to return to a state where I am paralyzed by my past is just plain ridiculous. We all deserve to be happy. We deserve to live as fully as possible. We all deserve the ability to rid ourselves of the "crap".

This morning, I vented. Cried like a baby. Rolled over and played dead. I gave my friend every reason why I could not possibly knock down this heavily guarded wall in which I have both allowed myself to hide behind and incorporated into my being. He kept egging on my fight instinct. Pointed out the objective. Wrote out the OBVIOUS. And after much argument, I re-read the words. He was right, I am defiant. I am powerful. And I have moments of complete insecurity. It happens.

We move on, persevere through life and hope that we've learned from our mistakes. I've made mistakes by allowing anything to stand in the way of who I am and why I'm here.

And now, I've furiously pulled down the weeds and remembered that my insecurities will never define me, they just annoy me. And life moves on.