Mindfulness

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 minute rat race tha

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