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...

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...

Authenticity has been on my mind lately. Mostly because I think it is overused and under-practiced. I would say that the majority of humans are not actually authentic, even if we have yearning to be and often claim to be. In the name of living up to this topic, I must admit that I am still in the process of understanding what it means to be authentic and to be honest still struggle with some parts of it. Not saying that I am dishonest or that I am easily swayed by the opinions around me, but there is something that a truly authentic person does that I think only a few have mastered. I hope to master it though. I am going to continue this conversation by looking at the different parts of what it means to be authentic. Honesty -  Honesty is another concept that I find interesting. Many people wear the band of 'truth teller' when really they crush the light of others to make their light seem brighter. It depends on the why you are being 'honest' and if your 'hone...

Everyone has walls and defenses based on the experience they have had. We all come into this world open, but as time goes by we all start to create our own way of surviving that can be destructive if we allow it to be. Might help with the short term, but it creates more problems in the future. Manifests in something more and more unhealthy if left examined. I am working on examining those walls and seeing what walls are foundational and what walls are unnecessary. Sometimes your house feels crowded due to the fact that there are too many barriers. If you remove them then you open up your house and there is a better flow to it. It makes the house feel open and welcoming, sometimes even freeing with more light. So that is my current journey. Seeing what is necessary and what it is getting in my way when it comes to having a healthy relationship with my friends, my family, and the world. Makes me sound like I have a 'hotmess'. I'm not. Definitely not. But I have to admit t...

Watching the Women's World Cup is bringing all these emotions and memories that I have to confront. That I feel needs to be addressed. I honestly do not talk about it too much, but it is a big part of who I am and how I operate. Maybe even illuminates some of my shortcomings as well. Let me start with the macro and I will work my way to my smaller story inside the larger narrative. Which is...it took me awhile to see the power in being a female.  Women, ethnic minorities, or members of the LGBTQ community (or some combination of the three) do not fit the 'normal' power paradigms and therefore rarely feel like they can connect with the people they see on the big or small screen.  This dissatisfaction comes from one of three places:  Lack of diverse ethnicities, religions, and races in general. Meaning these groups are simply not being cast.  Lack of humanizing and giving proper complexity to the diverse natures of these ethnicities, religions, and races when t...

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything." - George Bernard Shaw  Change is everywhere in my life. Not that it was not there before, because it is apart of life and we change all the time. But currently everyone I love are going through moves, processing retirement, changing career focuses, ending monumental relationships, or reconnecting with themselves by focusing on health. Change is a scary word due to the fact that it requires some kind of loss and the requirement of taking on something new. I tend to focus on the change, but the conversations I had this week reminded me that change is the outside and transition is the mind. We cling to change without truly examining how our identities handle and transition to the change. "Change is situational. Transition, on the other hand, is psychological. It is not those events, but rather the inner reorientation or self-redefinition that you have to go through in ord...