Mindfulness

The need for control was a conversation piece with my friends and I over the weekend. My mind has been thinking about it more and more since then, because I was intrigued by the idea that I was given more percentage points for a need for control than my other friends. Most people perceive me as a rather even-keel individual who only has a handful of things she would die on the hill for. So it sparked a curiosity in me to explore it a little more.  I think, all of us, have a need for control out of pure survival. Even zen buddhism lies in the principal that we have mastered our emotions and regulated ourselves so much that we are able to overcome desire or need. This takes a level of self-control that is hard to accomplish let alone maintain. So we all have areas of healthy control and unhealthy control.  There are a few areas where the need to control tends to manifest.  Control OVER others  Control OVER themselves  Control OVER their environment....

The truth is that no matter how much we grow as human-beings we can easily get derailed by the reminders of our past vulnerabilities.  Restless Energy  I have written extensively about my experiences at school. The feeling of being judged by teachers, peers, and systems. Some of those judgements came from a toxic self-image perceiving others as judgmental  and some of it was legit judgement. These feelings led me to feel like I needed to prove something to the people around me. In my youth, this feeling was portrayed by a demeanor of wanting to seem like I was over-confident and did not care about the things that the people around me cared about. As a young adult, it manifested in obsessive perfectionism about grades. Even today as thirty-something sometimes I get a case of imposter syndrome. This irrational fear that I am pretending really well and eventually people are going to figure out that I am just a resource kid who really does not deserve the things that I h...

9/11 is one of the most transformative days in United States history. It changed our relationship with the world, shifted our relationship with globalization in general, put in motion two wars, created new terrorist networks, polarized political parties, laid down seeds of mistrust in Democracy, cleared the path for nationalism, and made us a fearful people. So as the years pass and the more we know about how this day impacted us the pomp and circumstance that surrounds the day seems false and forced. We put on our patriotic hat to pause for those who died that day only to go back to our polarized camps of distrusting and undermining one another mere hours later. So as much as I mourn for the death of almost 3,000 people that died there is so much more to this day than that. I mourn the men and women who gave their lives to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. I mourn for the ones who came back who have yet to fully gain the benefits they deserve. I mourn for the soldiers who are still fig...

Introduction  Human beings are the masters of paradoxes. Our entire existence surrounds the most universal one of life and death. Other paradoxes that are apparent in history involve the issues of freedom vs. security,  unity vs. individuality, personal wealth vs. collective wealth, tradition vs. innovation, and there are so many others yet to be named. It is this pull that lives within humans that ask the question which side do I value more or how do I maintain a perfect balance of the two. Depending on the culture and the individual the answer to that question might look different. There is one paradox in particular that I have been thinking about lately. The paradox of kindness vs. honesty. This one bothers me to no end, because to me it is a paradox that exists due to toxic definitions of kindness and honesty. To be honest should be kind, and to be kind should be honest. So my plan is to examine both sides of these words to show how the toxic side forces a choice betwee...

This is really a reflection of some strange torn feelings that August has brought into my mind, but before I get to that I feel it is necessary to understand how I got to these reflections. So I will start with bullet-journaling. I contribute my success for weight loss and all around stronger mental health to keeping up with Bullet Journaling. This small part of my daily life carved time for reflection and organization.  Organization  Single place to put down training plans and to-do lists.  Single place to put down all my meetings, tasks, and events.  Provides a space to chunk out big tasks so that I am successful with the goals I set for myself.  The most important part of the Bullet Journal process though was the built-in reflection piece. Organization is great in that tasks get complete, I don't lose sight of the small things when stressed, and I make sure the important things get done first. Sometimes though tasks just become tasks. Part of the...

Authenticity is a word a that is both important and misunderstood. The word at its most base level simply means honest and original. Someone who lives their life in a completely honest and open manner would be someone who lives their life authentically. The idea of 'authentic' has become a public relations buzz word. This means we live in a world where even being authentic is a marketable trait, which muddies the water since if you are manufactured then by definition you are not authentic. But that doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, because as long as you feel an authentic relatability about a politician or celebrity then everyone has done their job. Al Gore, for example, was often criticized for not seeming authentic since he seemed stiff. In never occurred to anyone, that his stiffness might be his authentic self and the weird creepy guy who tongued his wife on stage was someone who was trying to 'relate' to a group of people he had absolutely no idea...

Over the last two months I have been thinking about my spirit animal more and more lately. A spirit animal is simply an animal that you feel spiritually connected to on a deeper level. It goes beyond 'this is my favorite animal' or 'they are super cute.' Instead, your spirit animal gives you a feeling that you are somehow connected or you are drawn to them. Often times you will see your spirit animal in dreams or even stumble upon them in nature more times than you would reasonably think you would. This is a deep connection and almost feels like the same feeling you get when you learn something new about yourself, make a life-time connection with a significant other, or that feeling you get when you come home after a long trip. It's both comforting and can also be eerie depending on where you are psychologically. Now, being a secular-humanist it might seem strange that I am even entertaining the idea that spirit animals exist. True that I have doubts on supernatur...