Pain at the Hand of Beauty

How do you see yourself? 

When you wake up fresh from a dream and carry yourself to the mirror in the morning, who do you see? 

I know we all wish we could wake up powdered faces, sin circles under the eyes, hair combed. Who do I see? See I am the type of person who looks like someone beats her up in her sleep. I am not kidding either, ask my friends, somehow, my hair manages to literally stick in every single direction when I wake up in the morning. Usually the dark circles are mixed with some makeup that didn't come off in the wash the night before, skin looks clean but blotchy. What if we woke up in the morning and started our day believing that fresh awoken, sleepy face that slowly awakening body, was beautiful?

How different would our day be if we saw perfection in the imperfections of an image so pure, and so fresh, and so untouched as the image we see first thing in the morning. Can you imagine where each step in getting ready would take us? And more than that can you imagine the confidence we would inevitably carry ourselves with were we to begin our day with a simple thought?

I am beautiful.

I know more than most how it feels to want to change everything about yourself. I've always been the taller one, the bigger one, the different one. I never allowed myself to hear the words that described the beauty I felt like I possessed. The words that invested themselves in me as confidence took a long time to develop into something that was cognizant to my everyday being.

I know that I have a long way to go, but look at how far I've come. 

Unless you see beauty within yourself, no one will ever see that beauty. Unless you commit to the likelihood that your confidence will carry you, you will continue to hide behind the aspects in your life you feel define you. Unless you choose to let your own words, your own thoughts, your own beliefs, and your own actions be the direct representation and the ultimate definition of your being? You are not going to be free from the binds that will continue to hold you back.

So how did I build this confidence? I began by taking out judgment, criticism, and the absolute insane idea of perfection and more than that, what society teaches us is perfection. 

I looked at myself and I forced myself to be inspired by the person staring back at me.

I looked at my love handles as something to love, and my smile as something to cherish, 

I looked at my eyes as a token of peace and my height and strength as a sign of perseverance.

 I looked at the softness of my features as a channel of youth and innocence, 

my hands as a channel of motivation. 

I saw my mouth as a channel of dedication, and my heart as a channel of hope. 

I saw a potential in each imperfection as an intimate relationship with progression towards becoming a better person. I don't look at my weight as an obstacle anymore, but rather an opportunity. To find an abstract idea in which I can thrive in, a future I can work for, health which I can live vivaciously through.

I stand upon this box, which I have built despite hardships. I watch the threatening hands of the world attempt to break me. And sometimes I fall, I look at my knees, and the skin which holds me together? Broken. 

Pain by the hand of Beauty. 

I retrieve my composure by reassurance, and step up again with a weary soul. Waiting for the next judgment, the next whisper, the next stare. I refuse to be enslaved by the ideas meant to tear me down. I look up, into that morning bathroom mirror, and I tell myself; 

You have a beautiful body. You have a beautiful soul. 

Your confidence can change the world.

Out with the old, In with the new

New Year, New You.

 

We all have those years. You know the years that feel as though they couldn't come to an end fast enough. The years that you anticipate January 1st as if it day by day time is moving slower and slower. That, was my year.

 

So why reflect? Why make the decision to turn your life around because of a few hours, and few days, a moment?

 

There is something about the societal demands of the holiday. There is something very special about our opportunity to create the possibility of new and improved goals, plans, and approaches. We spend so much time on the fast pace taking in our daily lives on a big picture. We don't pick apart the situations to develop an insight for ourselves on how the situations became so complicated, or how we became so bitter in the process.The reflection process is our ability to key into those areas. Find the points in time where positive thinking and zen could have completely sent the situation in a different direction.

 

I am not one to bathe in regret or even allow myself to be consumed by it on a small scale. However I think there is a positivity to allowing ourselves to realize regret and learn from it.

 

I look at all of my experiences from the last year with a hardened heart. I believe that these experiences truly had the ability to break me. The unforgivable actions of others towards me, the disrespect, the incoherency of feelings that lead to an ultimate demise. I see the periods of time where I shut down completely staring into space without a thought in my head, and pain consuming me from every angle.

 

There is always positivity in pain.

 

Heading into the new year I felt a strong pull towards preparing myself with a helmet as I hit the wall of another year gone, and as I ran full speed into the wall separating, I left my bags of uncherished relationships, regretful actions, and painful memories on a side to which I cannot retrieve them.

 

Knocking down the wall the pain was welcomed as I entered the new year letting go of the love that nearly broke me, the words that brought me so much pain, and the anxiety caused by uncertainty, and I looked forward to the possibility of regaining my control, reinventing my strength, and finding myself.   

 

So New Year, New Me? Yeah, I would like to think so. But I challenge you this much. Make your resolutions and stick to them. But on the off chance that you find more possibility in the day, resolve to making yourself better every single day.

 

Happy 2014!!

Control, Comfort, and Possibility

We spend our lives wishing for that perfect man to come along. We build a fantasy in our minds consistent with the idea of beginning a family by the age of 23 like our mother did. Now, that big house in the country with a baby swing out front and a wrap around porch almost haunts our dreams as we wake up alone with a cold side to the bed. By the time we are 25 we find ourselves sleeping in the middle of the bed to forget that two sides exist and pillows pile on to fill the empty spaces. 

Our minds are like our beds, by the time you get played a few times, dumped by the guy you thought was "the one", fall in love with someone who would never love you back, or lose yourself in someone who wasn't willing to find you, we begin to fill the spaces in our minds and in our hearts where emptiness resides. We fill these corners of our minds with thoughts about how these guys were jerks and we allow our hearts to play on that, inadvertently we choose to allow these thoughts to rule our day to day lives. 

Although this is not the same for everyone, maybe I am more of a feminist than I let on, but life is about having control. I don't know a single successful woman that doesn't need to have control over everything in her life. We think that control comes down to a few specifics. We are taught that if we thrive on our career, our relationships, and our physical image than we must have control over our lives.

The truth is, that we only have control over our destiny to a certain extent, and if we program ourselves to take responsibility for the things in our lives that we have control over, we will be successful. However, sometimes the absence of control, and the relinquishing of the stress that coincides with attempting to seize this control is what truly allows us happiness in our success'. 

Think about it. When was the last time you didn't feel at least a little bit bad about your life when you saw yet another picture of a happy couple on Facebook? When we let go of the idea that we have control over when and who we fall in love with, then that twinge of guilt, or sadness, or insufficiency, would cease to exist. We would look at another picture and in our mind we would look to the other side of the bed with hope and excitement.

I am by no means making a statement against those who marry young, who find the love of their life in high school and live happily ever after. It doesn't make either of us better or worse for living our lives the way we have chosen to. It's all just very different, and diversity is in no sense any reason for animosity. When we allow ourselves to see the happiness in other peoples individualized success' {whatever they may be} we can begin to see the same in our own.

So,

Seek responsibility and

Relinquish the uncontrollable 

Live your life on your own terms 

And most importantly: 

Thrive in possibility, rather than seek comfort in certainty.  

Walking Away

We spend so much time in our lives thinking "what's next" and the other half of our time is listening to people tell us to "live in the moment". The inconsistencies of our life, between how we are programmed to feel, think, and see things and what people say we should be feeling, thinking, or seeing things causes a rift in the human emotion. We start wondering why things dont work out the way they are supposed to. We start thinking that life is going to somehow fall apart if we create the wrong balance with the wrong people, at the wrong time

The truth is, that your life will fall apart. You will meet the wrong guy.You will blind yourself from the bad, and indulge yourself in the good. You will believe every word that comes out of his mouth because it sounds so perfect, and so right. You will invest yourself in him, do anything for him, and sometimes (most of the time) you will lose yourself in him.

So when do you come out of it all? Ill tell you one thing, its not when your friends tell you, or when your family tells you, or when people walk by you dont even know and tell you. You'll drag it out, its inevitable, call it lack in self-dignity, or lack in self-preservation. Maybe you stay with him for companionship, and maybe that companionship turns into love, but sometimes its just enough to hold yourself together. When you are with someone that you need to hold you together, that is when you really fall apart.

I cant explain the pit in my stomach, constantly, never going away. The million thoughts running through my head. Wanting so bad to just move forward, but so stuck in standing still. I lied in his arms and felt nothing but fear, fear of leaving them, fear of falling apart without him. Your realism is what saves you. Because when love is blind, reality hits you even harder. The memories are the worst, because they remind you what you gave up. Although you are no longer blind the memories are blindy imprinted. That happiness was real, as real as it could have been.

Sorry, is the last words Ill say to him. Sorry that we couldnt make this work, Sorry I couldnt be who you needed me to be. Sorry that this reality has hit us so harshly. With the most effort I have ever had to gather I moved slowly out the door, looking back only to remember that this was the last time I would ever feel welcome in that place.

As I closed the door to his house, I literally closed the door on everything we were, and with tears running down my cheeks the lonliness already consumed me.

The more I think about it, the more I think that I have been lonely for a very long time. Even when he laid next to me, even when he kissed me, even when he held me; I felt alone.

So I move forward, slowly and still with greif but I know that this will pass, and

I will remember that everything has to fall apart, before it can even begin to fall together.

I never understood why people wrote songs about break ups...until now

So you turn on the radio and your favorite song is on. 

You jam out to a couple of verses before you realize that its a song about true loathing and hate, 

about confusion and misunderstanding, about fear and loneliness. 

"But wait, its so catchy! I love this song" 

you say to yourself. Eventually you listen to the whole song and you want to cry by the end.

Why Taylor Swift? Why do you do these things to me?! 

My teardrops fall on my cheap knitted sweater, and the white horse is a beat up 1985 audi, 

but your songs? They speak to me!

Its like the stages of grief. 

If only every breakup could be resolved in a three hour therapy sesh with T. Swift.

Stage One: Denial. 

The story of us is that we were never going to work, but I still want to look at you across the room and pretend like you actually gave a shit about me at one point. But its just crazy and I should've said no to begin with

Stage 2: Anger. 

Unresolved fights, passive aggressive actions, why did I waste all my time on you? Honestly though? Your picture? I just want to dump them all in a bonfire, 

after cutting myself out of course because that there's a cute picture of me! 

But damnit! 

I should have known better! 'I knew you were trouble when you walked in' and its winter so I don't want to fall on the ground because its really cold. 

Good thing I have my snuggie so I can wrap myself up to prepare for my next stage of grief.

Stage 3: Bargaining.

 Just take me back to December, so i can see your family (who incidentally I actually liked more than I liked you.) I realized I loved you in the fall, and somehow fell out of love with you by December, 

but hey! here I am, I am swallowing my pride, 

see me one more time, this can work, I promise, you belong with me...Ok, putting my phone in the other room now, because I miss your texting and my fingers have a mind of their own.

Stage 4:Depression. 

Ok so now that my tear soaked hoodie is filled with the result of months of relationship effort 

I am going to pretend that the 3 glasses of wine actually eased my pain. 

I don't know what to be without you around, 'you're the only thing I know like the back of my hand'. Trying to breathe hurts more through the sobbing. 'Losing you is blue, like I've never known; missing you is dark gray all alone'

Stage 5:Acceptance. 

The bright end of the rainbow comes when you realize that he was never good enough for you 

I'm putting on these high heels on because I want to damnit! 

I am going to blast this song on the radio because you're not sitting beside me. I met someone, he got to the restaurant early, and I might be a little shy, but I am ready, to begin again. The next one is going to make a rebel of my fathers careful daughter. 

And lets face it, 'we are never getting back together...like, ever.'

I take out the CD feeling empowered, Like all of the hurtful things he said to me had been swallowed up by music, like his "I love you"'s never existed. I step out and I feel the weight of the world off of my chest and land at my feet. I step up as I rise above the burden, and I smile at what is truly existent. 

I sigh, I breathe out the negativity, I see happiness and hope and most of all, a fresh start.

Change is the only Constant

Alas, the time has come. I feel as if I have been waiting on the edge of forever for a glimmer of hope which brought to me, an abundance of happiness. Not all has been l consumed in my state of euphoria, fear and anxiety still linger as an imminent change lures me in. This new journey beginning so soon to an end I could never have guessed would come so soon in my post grad life.

The world within reach to my outstretched arms holds a promise for brighter days ahead. This change though forced upon me seems to be the lighter in a room of candles.

I look back only to reflect on the days which I felt so lost, so confused, so insignificant. I analyze the steps, the decisions, and the support that has brought me to this day. It's almost impossible to pinpoint a moment, a fraction of time, that even comes close to explaining how I have become this person. I remember the nickels and dimes that complimented my tears as I walked aimlessly through a period of time I never thought I deserved, and never felt like I belonged. So insistent that life had a bigger plan for me than the moment forced upon me.

And then, I had thought everything made sense for a while. I had a purpose. Never did I think, in a million years, that less than a year after college I would be switching career paths, and feel completely right about it.

It's amazing what 8 months can do, how it can change your life. I walk with my head held high, with an air of confidence I never even knew I was capable of. I am learning to love my life despite its imperfections, and despite the obstacles and hardships that threaten to break my stride.

Challenges will ensue, and tears will still fall, but I will survive, despite it all.

Every Action has a Reaction

The most difficult times in our lives are often the moments with the most potential. The intensity and momentum behind feelings and energy's are so prominent that they have the power to truly change someone's life for better or worse. When you are going through a rough patch, the worst thing you can do is use that energy as a relentless pain on your life. If you see that emotion taking the better half of you and tearing you down, then there is something that needs to change.

Motivation comes from energy. We all know what it feels like to be stuck in bed with no want or will to step foot outside the house. It's almost as if that reality doesn't even exist in our minds. However, once we find that energy, whether it derives from our guilt or conscious understanding of the word "lazy" we find a motivation.

The action to reaction law is not only scientific but philosophical. There is a motive behind each action. An energy by which it makes it's first movements. An action which is typically pushed by a forcefield, which in this case would be a human emotion. We can choose, that's the amazing thing about free will, to ensure that motive is positive, no matter how negative the emotion is. Anger is the most powerful emotion to create true change and success. I believe in it's ability to bring about love and sincerity from a mixture of turbulent fury and submission.

What I feel now is insubordination, it is anxiety, fear, fury, and relentless submission. But what have I decided is going to become of this? A passion for a positive reaction from such negative actions. The insubordination drives my passion for leadership and challenge, my anxiety a momentum for change. My fear, though still an obstacle, reminds me that strength and bravery are the only results of overcoming it. My fury drives me towards a future of happiness. My submission towards authority.

So why do we feel tested by negativity? When positivity is the only successful outcome? The negativity tears and pulls at our strength as if we will break. But the perseverance and relentless drive at which we face the negative energy, is what makes the positivity even more easily obtainable.