Well, hello Friends. I've got my cup of coffee with me, and I thought I'd stop for a moment before I start getting ready for work. I'm still in training, though I've been answering the phones and doing basic things. It's not a difficult job at all. In fact, it's nothing I haven't done before. What's difficult is getting back into the swing of things.
As you may know, I've been kicking it at the apartment for the last year, and before that, I was just kicking it in L.A., with book projects to work on, life stuff to get in order, that kind of thing. I was just hanging out, which at first was an adjustment, and then became rather easy. (Though I was still dreaming a lot about my last job, whose stresses hadn't quite left my system yet.)
It's been just me and the boys, basically, for months and months. I thought I was tired of it, and that I was ready to join the work force. I hadn't realized that I would miss the leisure, or the time with my "kids"... but I do.
However, I also enjoy the energy of the people I work with, and the feeling of being a part of something else. It's a new chapter for me, and it's a little bit of a jerky start, but I am going to embrace it. It'll take me a while to figure out how to juggle my time, I'm sure. I'm still working on other projects, and have business to finish. Somehow, I'll need to start utilizing my time more wisely, as I used to know how to do. I'm sure I'm not alone in this.
When I was busy with a career, I knew how to manage my time better. I could work 40-55 hours a week, and still find time in there to do other things like shop, (half-heartedly) work on projects, cook, clean, etc. I was exhausted, mind you. Most of the time I felt quite tired, but I also used to fall asleep in about 1-2 minutes. But then I'd be wide awake at 1, 2, 3 am, and not be able to fall back asleep right away. I think that was stress-related. Without a career, I seem to have gotten very little done! Did I waste my time? I guess that depends on how you define "waste". Because when I really consider it, that time was a healing time for me that I desperately needed. I think that we forget to tend to ourselves most of the time... we worry about others' needs and situations, and we put ourselves on the back-burner. I did that a lot when I lived in California.
In my memory, I have always either worked, worked and went to school, went to school and worked, worked two or even three jobs, or was absolutely exhausted and unable to do anything.
And then I figured a few things out. You know, Life doesn't have to be a rat race. I know it seems like it does sometimes. It seems like it IS, sometimes. But if you can allow yourself to step back, and ask yourself some hard-hitting questions, you might find that you have the nerve to pull out of that race. Here are some questions:
1. What are the most important things to you?
2. What do you love the most in your life?
3. What can you live without if you had to?
4. Is your health more important than new gadgets or new clothes, etc?
5. What are you most grateful for?
If you can think outside the box, I'm sure that you'll find the path that's right for you. We're all so entrenched in thinking that we must have a career, we must buy a car, a house, whatever, and we must be "equal" to those in our peer groups, or we are failures. Look, the failure is in letting others tell you what kind of life to have and following that blindly. Make up your own mind, and allow yourself some happiness before this life is over! If Life has taught me anything, it's that most people think they have made decisions for themselves, but really, most people don't think. They just robotically weigh their choices with a "yes" or "no" answer against what OTHER people have done, and decide in an almost binary deduction from that. They don't actually stop and think about their own deep feelings. It's easy enough to say, if this then that. If that, then yes, or if that, then no. That's not making a real, true CHOICE. That's just following someone else's flowchart.
I hope I've give you some food for thought. REAL thought. Make magic happen for yourself! Be inspired by yourself! Use that juicy brain of yours for more than robotic decisions, and let yourself FLY... it's such a different path, and who knows? Maybe you'll be happier!
Last note: I'm not saying that I've made the right choice here, but that's my point. I'm making my OWN choice. I'm doing what feels good and right for ME. Everyone I know probably thinks I'm crazy for "settling" for an easy job, and not making tons of money... but I know what makes me happy more than anyone else could. I'm the writer for the story of my life. Are you?
I hope you have a blessed day. xoxox
There are days when things happen in an orderly way, and your expectations are met, and you feel like you've got it all under control. And there are days when you don't. Things feel out of balance, and like you've got too much on your plate. Or maybe you feel like you keep missing a beat.
On these days, it helps to remember that we are all part of a whole, and that we are meant to grow and learn from those days when we feel especially challenged. Allow the craziness to happen, and take a deep, cleansing breath, and then take each thing one at a time. All we can ever do is our best. No one is ever asking for more than that. No one is perfect.
In fact, "perfection" is an idea that was conceived as a way to push us to greater heights... but I don't know a single person whose idea of perfection is the same as anyone else's. It's so subjective, and it's unrealistic. Life is not perfect. And those imperfections are what make things so interesting, right?
Being overwhelmed is allowing the idea to sink into your head that you must be able to accomplish everything thrown at you with some kind of ease. That's not realistic, really. We can't always be in stride... sometimes we stumble. If you allow the moments to unfold without expectations on yourself, it may also allow you to let go of those feelings of inadequacy. Do what you can, when you can, to the best of your ability, and let all other things/feelings/ideas about it fall to the wayside.
... how did that person accomplish such a wonder?
Have you ever had a dream for yourself, and wondered, "Can I make this happen?" Did you question your abilities or your resources and then put your dreams aside? Let me tell you something that I know for sure: You can do it. You can make your dreams come true.
It doesn't take anything truly extraordinary. It doesn't take a ton of skill or talent. All it takes is knowing what you want, envisioning it as already being in existence, and going forward towards your goal with each step you take. That's how it's always been done! And be thankful for each step you take forward, also. Love each moment that you have and know that you are making progress.
As I've said before, making a vision board with pictures to draw from will help you to focus your mind. Even more powerful, I believe, is making a vision journal. Write in is as though you already had what you wanted, and feel the gratefulness of having it. Write about it! Be excited for yourself and your loved ones because of it. Live as though it were already a reality!
People are amazing. When you think about all the things that we currently have: cars, airplanes, space flight... all these things came into being because someone SAW it in their minds eye. They imagined it, and then they worked towards it with their vision in mind.
I know you can do whatever it is that your dreams call you towards. I know it. If you HAVE a dream, then you are the lucky one! To this day, I still don't know what it is that I want! I feel like a one-off from everyone. But I know that's okay, too. I'm here to support those that have a dream. I'm here to tell you: You can make your dreams a reality!
Tell me what your dreams are! I would love to hear about them. If I can help in any way, I would like to be a helpful part of your success. I'm actually a pretty good cheerleader, and I also KNOW THINGS. Ha ha! I am always willing to try, regardless. So let's hear it!
After reading Brandigirl's blog today, which talks about what makes a person an artist, I felt the need to piggy back onto that subject.
When I was going to college, I had an instructor who was also a well-known sculptor. I looked up to him, as he seemed to be an artist as well as a success. He taught art, received commissions and actually made money enough to live in the Santa Cruz Mountains. One week, we had a project to do to create a 3D work using our shadows as the subject matter. Now, I had never worked in three dimensions before... I was always doing photography, drawing in pencils, charcoals, pastels... some painting, too, but it was all in two dimensions. This shadow project was one of my first. Also, I hadn't yet taken any color classes, so I was really young & naive to what ways I could express myself artistically.
I had to work with what I had, as I was struggling with school, work and living on my own. I was able to get some plywood from my mom's garage, traced the designs I wanted onto the sheets of plywood, and had my boyfriend at the time help me to cut the designs out. I had to use spray paint that was already in the garage for color, and they were only red, green and blue. Hideous colors, to be sure! The resulting piece was two of my shadow forms, which I had notched to fit together in the middle, so that they would stand up like a statue. I thought it was kind of cool, and it took me days to complete. When my instructor critiqued it, his only comment was, "It's very pedestrian." And then he moved on to the next person's piece.
I was devastated, and very certain that I was NOT an artist, and if I were, I was a BAD artist. I cried that night, and maybe a couple more times, whenever the shame of his assessment would wash over me.
It took me many, many years to shake that torn and dirty shawl off my shoulders. I believed my old instructor. I let his horrible and unthinking words have their way with my psyche. I should have ignored him completely, but I wasn't as strong then as I am now.
 |
| BaBAM! |
Then take my sister. She went to school for business. She was always told by our mom that she was very good at business and money matters, but that she had no creativity in her. Now, my mom was always pretty supportive of my love of the arts, and had told me that I was good at drawing, etc. But with my sister, she felt that her strengths were definitely NOT in the arts.
But my sister was not cowed, or thrown off her personal vision, which started after she graduated. She moved down to L.A., and promptly got into fashion, doing textile designs for a big clothing design company. (I own tons of their clothes!) Then she decided that she wanted to design clothes herself, and moved to a different company, getting closer to her goal. However, she changed goals later, when she decided to become a fashion photographer. Mind you, she never went to art or design school. She never immersed herself in photography back in school. Yet, she threw herself into it, and called herself a photographer, and she became VERY GOOD. In fact, people pay her to do photo shoots of them because she's so good. Check out the link to her photos...
You are what you believe you are. You are the maker of your Life. You design your place in the Universe. Believe in yourself, and you can become whatever you want! Don't let labels, yours or other people's, stop you from pursuing your dreams. Follow your bliss!!
One of the exercises that I've done for my journaling pages is defining what my Primary Beliefs are about these five main areas of belief systems:
Life
Self
People
Love
Abundance
The exercise was to write down one empowering and one disempowering idea that I have about each of my specific belief systems. It was really fascinating! I found that each of my disempowering ideas was in direct contrast to my empowering ideas! That means that I have been working against myself in my adult lifetime.
You honestly can't get anywhere in life if you are pushing and pulling at the same time. You just end up in exactly the same place!
For example: one of my empowering ideas about Love is that it is a beautiful thing. Love is beautiful. Love is all-important. One of my disempowering ideas about Love is that people can get jaded and close themselves off from love. However, the type of love that caused me to originally formulate that specific idea wasn't a love borne of real power. It was a love that I had for people where the love wasn't reciprocated, and therefore, it was the kind of love that stems from my ego's need for approval/validation/etc. It wasn't the kind of love that comes from spirit and truth. Yet, I have been hanging onto that as part of my belief system about Love!
If you try to do this exercise yourself, I think you'll find some similar eye-opening contradictions in your own belief system.... it's apparently very typical. We base our belief systems on past experiences, even though we may have been very young, inexperienced, or uninformed, at the time of the experience. Then we hold onto those experiences as the basis for how we perceive the rest of our experiences. It's easy to fall into, isn't it? I mean, I've grown so much since the times when my heart was broken by someone, and have learned so much more about myself and about love since those times, and yet, when asked about what my beliefs about Love are, I found that they were based on those old experiences, and not the new ones that I've formed in my adult years!
Breaking down those "supports" for your beliefs are a way to open up your eyes (and heart) to what is important and wonderful about this world that we live in. It's a way to break the chains that hold us to behaviors and thought patterns that could be holding us back from our true happiness! I challenge you to do this exercise for yourself, and see what you find out about your own belief systems! Happy journaling! Blessings to all.... xoxo
...and I find that I'm procrastinating the main subject on the spread. Strange! I mean, why don't I know what I want? I'm creating this journal to help me to visualize and live the life that I want for myself and I can't seem to get past the first block. Why don't I know what I want? I thought I KNEW what I wanted.... but apparently I don't? I mean, I know that I want to be successful at something, right? I know that I have a few ventures started. But how to take that first step?
If anyone has any ideas, I'd be happy to hear them!
I could use a little help from my friends. I need a little help to unlock that door.
Posts
