we must throw our own sticks

It has been a long time since a post, but I came across this excerpt and i felt like i needed to share it with all the people i know who are approaching or are in the midst of a QUARTER LIFE CRISIS.

It's about this guy and his dog...

"If then i bend over and pick up a stick, he is instantly before me. the great thing has now happened. he has a mission.... it never occurs to him to evaluate the mission. his dedication is solely to its fulfillment. he runs or swims any distance, over or through any obstacle, to get that stick.

and, having got it, he brings it back: for his mission is not simply to get it but to return it. yet, as he approaches me, he moves more slowly. he wants to give it to me and give closure to his task, yet he hates to be done with his mission, to again be in the position of waiting.

for him as for me, it is necessary to be in the service of something beyond the self. until i am ready he must wait. he is lucky to have me throw his stick. i am waiting for God to throw mine. have been waiting a long time. who knows when, if ever, he will again turn his attention to me."

We have all gone and fetched a stick and walked back very slowly knowing that that chapter of our lives was over. change is rough.

I remember when i graduated from college and thought to myself, "I wish someone would just tell me what to do, and I'll do it".

so much freedom to do whatever. to pick up any stick. but i was too scared and wanted to push the responsibility onto someone else. and for the guy in the story, he is waiting for God to throw him a stick. I'm not going to get all religious and shit, but alz i know is....

I'm going to throw my own stick and see what happens.

in the waiting line

Sometimes I feel like I am rushing to the future. I don’t want to sit and wait for someone to call me, so I call them. I don’t wait for the suspense to build, so I just dive right in. maybe its after years of being told you have to go after what you want. we have all grown up in an environment that has pushed us to be leaders and to hedge our way to the front, but maybe that isn’t the mentality that we need at this time. Maybe it is better to be in the waiting line.

Like lets say you are at a restaurant and there is a huge line and you are hungry and you think you are more hungry than everyone else in line, so you shove your ass right to the front of the line. and ya, you place your order and will eat 30 minutes before everyone, but you just pissed off a room of people and probably have some pubes in your sandwich.

Sometimes what we want is just not ready to happen. The restaurant is crowded for a reason. All the people in front of you are all meant to be there. even your aching belly, it is all apart of the picture.

All your unmet desires are playing out in some perfect way.

“have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day”.

I love the line YOU NEED TO LIVE THE QUESTION.

What we have to do is be happy with our questions - enjoy waiting.

Someday I will have the answer and the closure and all these missing elements will be woven into my life… but today isn’t that day and I have to be content with that.

And lets just say in the example before, you are waiting in line at that restaurant and instead of being a jerk you decide to talk to the stranger in line, or you pick up the newspaper, or you choose to live the moment, maybe that decision will take you through to a new place.

You are everywhere you are supposed to be. You are reading this because your day has taken you here. you called or didn’t call someone because of any number of reasons, all you can do is follow bliss in THIS second and not live for any future contentment. The contentment you need can be felt now.

“we go blind when we need to see, and this leans on me like a rootless tree.”

–Damien Rice

For so long I have loved that quote and never really understood it.

But now I think it fits with this post.

what I think it is trying to say is….

not everything in your life needs to be all figured out. And if we search for a way to make everything black or white, we go blind. Our life is really just shades of gray (sorry for the cliché… and for rhyming).

Those areas of gray ARE our lives. All the drama, the hours of contemplation and the tears, are what fill our day. This is life. It is a heavy burden to try to go around closing up all the loose ends. I say just let it all hang out. Take all the perceived imperfections of your job, your relationships, your body, your life, and just let them be.

Because you don’t need to see everything.

you can’t experience everything.

“Perfection is a question. a question for someone else. Not for me.”

So now go enjoy all the grayness of your life.

Namaste.

Chuck Bass teaches me about Buddhism

im going to come out and say it-- I learned something really great from watching gossip girl last night.

One of my few times actually watching the show and it blew my fucking mind. Besides all the cute clothes, core bitchiness, and odd resemblance to The Hills... there were bits of wisdom.

So my revelation came when Chuck was trying to comfort that one girl with the really bad hair extensions and said this, "The world you’re looking at only exists from the outside."

Wooooow!

How many worlds have we created with our expectations that are only real because they are not fulfilled?

This is one of those revelations that feels really good, at first.

you start to realize that everything you want may not really exist in the form you imagined. every rose has its thorn. a life full of money, gossip, and parties only seems substantial when you don't have it. Chuck, for example, has all those things, and yet is probably the most empty person, and fills his void with drugs and girls. Yet everyone around him envies his lifestyle. go figure.

"what makes us discontented with our condition is the absurdly exaggerated idea we have of the happiness of others."

is there a way to have goals that aren't distorted by our wild imaginations, and have a world to strive for where our vision is attainable?

I was going to ramble on about how to pick goals that suit you, and research people who are happy. but then i realized the question above can be put more simply-- what should we want?

In our culture we are brought up to be very goal oriented. find out what you want and then do it and then happiness will inevitably follow. but how many times has that actually worked?

again like in gossip girl...

i want money, i am going to be ruthless until i get it, and yet now everyone hates me. what happened?

why didn't things work out?

is it because money was the focus...?

okay lets try it with a different goal:

i want to have a better relationship with my friend, i am going to talk to her about what could be better in the friendship and point out things that need to change, and then... she resents me.

shit! this scenario didn't work out much better.

this is when realizing that there is no perfect world becomes depressing.

it is sad to think that most of the things we want can not be fulfilled (even the ones that seem to have the best intentions).

I remember when i was in my Buddhism class in college and the professor goes, "everything is nothing. you have nothing. you don't have a relationship with anyone. not even your mom."

we all giggled. and someone even said i didn't realize it until now but I HATE BUDDHISM.

i will admit, i left that class a little depressed, and thought how can this be a religion... it makes me so sad.

But as i let the truths of what Buddhism was saying settle in, i realized that everything is nothing. it is actually freeing. we don't need anything because everything out there is nothing.

at the root of all this unhappiness are our desires. our desire to be like someone else, our desire to have a bunch of money, our desire to have a perfect career. they are all bullshit and we keep thinking that if we drink in more stuff, then we will get closer to being whole. but if we can stop wanting all this shit then we can actually be whole.

to come back to the question --what should we want?

we shouldn't want anything.

is that realistic though?

you may be thinking, well food is a desire, shelter is a desire, relationships are a desire, and those all are necessary for our existence.

but i think it is maybe the unrealistic-ness of these desires that gets us into trouble.

for example, i used to think that i couldn't live without chocolate. and like most girls we go in search of chocolate when we are sitting alone watching gossip girl. (oddly enough).

it again becomes this desire to take in something to fill a void.

i think this should be our task -- categorizing our desires.

is this what i really need... or is this just something that i am using so that i can avoid a much greater emotion?

"when we cannot find contentment in ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere"

this ended up being a really long post, but in short: examine your desires.

are you wanting something that doesn't exist?

are you wanting something because you think it will make you whole?

are you wanting something because of misguided emotions?

"what we think we need and what we think we want is all bullshit" -my dad (the politically incorrect buddhist)

to try and end on a happier note...

if you can control your desires, happiness is within your grasp.

right now pretend that you had everything you ever wanted.

let yourself smile and think that you have it.

you can see that happiness is a state of mind and is not truly contingent upon what kind of car is really sitting in your garage.

go about your day today pretending you have everything, live in the world you have always dreamed of.

if it feels good and makes you happy then why not keep that mentality going every day, because believe it or not you just found a way to be happy.

IF YOU WANT TO BE DIFFERENT, BE DIFFERENT

last week i went and saw a documentary on a guy named Frank. he was overweight, recovering heroin addict, claimed "hadn't seen his penis in 10 years", and was just downright unhappy.

the movie was about him doing a 42 day cleanse that focused on changing his diet (to vegan/raw) and changing his lifestyle (exercising & saying positive affirmations).

at the end of the showing Frank was actually there! and he did a little q&a. one person asked why and how did you decide to do this cleanse...

Franks answer:

"I was so desperate. I had nothing else going for me. it came down to why not? why not do this.

And when it came down to it all i had to say was yes.

YES.

it is this little word that changed my whole life. "

This made me realize that it was a split second where Frank had to be brave and say yes, and every yes after that was easy. so in reality we only have to be amazingly strong for one brief second. come on we can all do that!!

everything besides what you want are just distractions. Frank could have let his desire for meat stand in the way of him experiencing his new cleansed self. or he could have let the comfort of his bed prevent him from going on a 30 minute walk. or he could have let his fear of the unknown stop him from finding the power of the infinite.

"if it is important enough to you, you will find a way. if it is not, you find an excuse"

in most cases it is fear that stops us from change. we almost always know what we want or what we should do but there is this little word that we use that ruins everything.

in place of saying that we will actually do something we say...

i am trying to loose weight.

i am trying to make him/her not apart of my life.

i am trying to be more positive.

"do or do not-- there is no try"

if there is something in your life that you can physically write down and enumerate how you want it to be, then the only thing standing in the way is you.

maybe you are not at rock bottom yet (and maybe that means something too). But in Franks case, he was done. he was fed up with what his life had become and he wanted to be different, so he became something different.

its like that annoying calculation of how to loose weight... calories in has to be less than calories burned. and there is truth in that.

sometimes the biggest things are just that simple.

if you want to be different, be different.

curious about the documentary...??

http://mayibefrankmovie.wordpress.com/index/

peace is in pieces

if happiness is when expectations meet reality, then is unhappiness when you fall short of your vision...?

yesterday i taught my first yoga class. and it wasn't as i imagined. like anyone, i had these daydreams of me standing in front of the room saying the most brilliant things and everyone beaming back at me with gratitude. yes, i wished it had gone better, and i wish i had said certain things, so in short i had some minor disappointments, but when i got back in my car i was not unhappy. my class had definitely not met my romanticized expectations, but for some reason i felt okay about it.

but as the day progressed i let my mind get away from me. i started to be negative nancy and was questioning my character and if i had the balls to be a good teacher. (maybe this is when being a psych major isn't the best thing) because then i was going back to my days of public speaking in intermediate school... and when i would blackout during a speech and end up repeating the same paragraph over.

i remember it like it was yesterday, it was my current event on television parental guideline ratings.

"The television industry designed a TV ratings last monday. the content levels are suggestive dialogue, crude language, suggestive dialogue, crude language, suggestive language, crude dialogue..... suggestive dialogue, crude language...."

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh it was awful.

and then i went back to my seat and the boy sitting next to me (im pretty sure it was Wilkie Johnson) says, "ummm you know you repeated the same line like 3 times"

GOD IT WAS SO BAD. it makes me want to cry right now just writing this. hahaha

anyways.....

so not getting all freudian and bullshit, but i obviously have/had a fear of public speaking and having people watch me as i make an idiot out of myself. so reflecting on that i was saying to myself yesterday, WHY THE FUCK DID YOU PAY ALL THIS MONEY TO BECOME A YOGA TEACHER!!!???

not going to make this posting about concurring your fear and bla bla bla... but i do think putting myself out there to be a teacher and going after what i want in spite of my obvious lack of public speaking skills is changing me for the better.

what i really want to talk about is how to appreciate steps.

i have come a long way from the days of my current events speech, and even progressed from the person i was yesterday when i was teaching my class.

rome wasn't built in a day. and i can not expect to be the person i want to be in a matter of moments.

i see others, as well as myself, putting all their eggs in one basket and claiming that this one thing is going to be the turn around of their entire lives. but i think it is a bunch of little things that get us to where we want to be. it is that one oreo we put down that makes us that much thinner, it is that one article that we read in the newspaper that makes us that much more interesting, and it is that one loser job that teaches us that little thing that changes our mentality forever.

"peace is in pieces"

for me happiness is when we find a way to live with our progress. when we are happy that we made this one hour better than the last.

and for that one moment when we do get to that place where all our expectations are presented in reality, that is euphoria, but sadly that only lasts for a second.

so for now i am going to be totally happy teaching my not so perfect yoga classes.

"the art of living lies less in eliminating our troubles than in growing with them."

everything you are thinking you already know

everything you are thinking you already know.

think about it, the lists that you create or the moments that you replay or the judgements that you fine tune in your head are already present, you know it all. so then why do we let our minds stay stuck in repetitive thought?

this is true for me when I am going to bed and I think and think and think and then oddly enough in the morning I can't remember anything i thought about. it seemed so important when i was lying there, and it seemed like i really figured EVERYTHING out. when in actuality i was just spinning my wheels for 2 hours. it is this chattering of the mind that i believe blocks us from truth. blaaaaa what is truth? such an annoying and vague word.

i think truth is something you can't see, you can't talk about, and you can't fake. it is our gut.

its when you flip a coin and it lands on the side you were betting against. and then you realize what you want and you do it.

get in touch with your gut. its hard when the tv is blarring, or when losers are chattering, or when respecting yourself isn't a priority.

If you can't sit in silence, or surround yourself with good people, or take care of your physical body, then your gut is unhappy and you cant find your truth.

does religion have to do with truth?

whooooaaaa!

before i had a quote that said kindness is my religion... so i am saying now be kind to yourself. practice a personal religion that brings you your own truth and thus your own happiness.

YOU KNOW A LOT. you have experiences of about 20 plus years, and i am giving you the green light to make your own religion, one that values you.

for me yoga takes me away from constant stimulus to a place where i can recharge and feel connected to myself. my mind isn't being pumped with images of Linsday Lohans cocaine-ified feet, or advertisements for pills i need to take to boost my metabolism and get cancer, or hear Nancy Grace talk about crazy shit in a southern drawl.

obviously i love to watch this shit, but you know i feel bad for the people that actually believe these things. those that are addicted to this world that perpetuates feelings of fear and inadequacy.

And i know none of my readers are the people that are sucked into this kind of dribble... but i think this is an extreme example of all the things out there that are not truth.

this type of media latches on to those that are weak.

and without an internal respect for yourself and your gut, your intuition, your truth or whatever, you are everyday threatened by Nancy Grace. hahaha

but seriously respect what you know, let what you feel come through, and have the strength to stand by those thoughts because they are worth everything.

"I searched through rebellion, drugs, diet, mysticism, religion, intellectualism, and much more, only to find that truth is basically simple and feels good, clear and right" -Armando Corea

"Facts and facts, and things and things: them all a lotta bullshit. here me! there is no truth but the one" -bob marley

What are you writing a fucking book about me?

When I was younger and my dad would leave the house on the weekends, everyone was around to see him fuddling around looking for his keys and gathering up shit, all eyes would turn on him and we would ask so curiously, "where are you going?"

and he would respond, "what are you writing a fucking book about me?"

at the time, yes, it seemed a little harsh (but also very funny). but now i see he wanted his privacy and proved that it doesn't really matter where he was going.

I have found the biggest relief in knowing that no one is writing a fucking book about me.

No one really cares what you are doing. Facebook has made us feel that other people care what we are doing. And we seem to think that everyone is creating a story about us in their heads.

"O he was so chubby in intermediate school, and then in high school o-man that was the phase where he had bad skin and an ugly girl friend, but then in college o thats where he blossomed and got in with the right crowd."

paaaaalease!!!!

If you think other people are constructing a story about you and who you have been and who you are... you are seriously mistaken. (and doesnt that feel good and bad at the same time).

It is only you making up this story in your head. It is only your patterns of thought that are keeping you trapped in the past.

"the habitual pattern of thought stands in the way of other impressions"

Sometimes I catch myself writing a story for myself, and putting it in chapters and making these overly dramatic (and inaccurate) groupings. Por ejemplo: I sometimes section off the years -these were the years when I had good friends, and then these were the years when I had bad friends, and then this year I was in love, and this year I was lonely. I have made my life about extremes, and I hold onto these groups, and now i see how they hold me back.

What are you letting be your scar?

"If you hold on tight, to what you think is your thing, you may find you're missing all the rest" -Dave Matthews

Stop thinking other people are writing a book about you,

stop writing a book about yourself,

and just live.

"should" is a funny word

Should.

you should do this. you should be that.

they should not have done this or that.

who are you to make up the should's of peoples lives!

you can only do what you can do. and you can't make or want other people do what you want them to do.

it is this pressure that we put on others to live up to our expectations that causes our unhappiness in relationships. just let people be who they want to be, and if their agenda fits into your life, and their morals are in line with yours then it is a match. stop fussing over how you wish people were different.

if you are so strong in your beliefs and can't welcome someone else's thought patterns then walk away. i don't see the point in arguing about it or trying to change them. so i just let it be.

its about YOU accepting a difference in opinion, not how you can manipulate them into being the way you want them to be.

this is all simple when its a fresh meeting between two people... but the problem is when you have already let them into your life and you let the list of should's just pile up.

"she shouldn't be such a slut"

"you shouldn't hang out with them"

"he should treat me better"

the solution: STOP BEING A VICTIM.

here is my crazy weird analogy...

lets just say your life is like a house... and you own this house, okay.

and then you let people come into your house and you chill with them and whatever.

and then someone starts pissing on your carpet. what do you do?

do you just sit there and whisper to your friends, "ummm he really shouldn't be pissing on my carpet!"

OR

do you man up and kick them out of your mother fucking house for pissing on your mother fucking carpet!

so maybe sometimes its not as severe. like if someone is in your house and breaks something, okay fine. shit happens. and people fuck up. but then next time i turn around the bitch is throwing a dish at my wall, cuz she wants to start shit and cause drama.

and I'm like bitch i don't think so!!!

get out of my house.

cuz i am not going to sit there and coach her on how she SHOULD behave in my house.

you had your chance and now i don't want you here. thank you bye bye.

very simple analogy. but really why do we let people linger around and piss on our carpet and break our shit?

we sure as hell wouldn't let them fuck with the material objects of our house, so why let them do it with our emotions.

there are people out there that will fill your house.

"don't hold on just because you think there's no one else. there will always be someone else. you've got to believe you're worth more than being repeatedly hurt by someone who doesn't really care and believe that someone will see what you're really worth and treat you the way you should be treated"

"I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet." -Mahatma Gandhi

And don't blame yourself for letting them into your house. we have to always let new people in to truly love and experience them.

"i like people too much or not at all. i've got to go down deep, to fall into people, to really know them." -Sylvia Plath

so lets not should people to death and live our lives as we want and celebrate with those that make life worth living.

"I do my thing, and you do your thing. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you are not in this world to live up to mine. you are you, and i am i, and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful." -Frederick E. Perl

love is my religion

“A human being is part of a whole, called by us the 'Universe', a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” - Albert Einstein

widen our circle of compassion.

embrace all.

these are the two key things for FORGIVENESS.

To me forgiveness is the last step in a whole fucked up chain of bullshit. and forgiveness is the end. it is the last place a messy break up, an ugly fight, or whatever can be put to rest.

but it is also the beginning. it is the beginning of your love for them. real love. not emotional or physical love, but love that helps you see. love that embraces them and offers them compassion. because if we don't want to be a prison unto ourselves then we must look at what we are trying so desperately to keep out and knowingly let it back in.

if i reflect back on bridges burned and i think of that person and can not and will not send out genuine love to them and wish them happiness in their lives, then i have not forgiven them. fact.

sometimes it is easier to say i don't give a fuck what they do with their lives and mask that as being forgiveness. that is not forgiveness. you have only mastered a way to not dwell on it, and have missed the last step (or the first) in offering them love.

it is not outwardly love, in which you are going to march over to their house and give them a big hug. it is inner love that you are also giving to yourself and letting yourself dissolve away any ties that you are storing with that person.

yes there are still some people i am still not in a place to forgive. i still do not wish them happiness in their lives. and that is sad for me. i really wish it wasn't that way. but that is what i am working towards.

but there are people who have over the years made their way back into my heart. they don't know it. but that is not the point. forgiveness is about you!

"if a puss and dog can get together, why can't we love one another?" - bob marley

"This is my simple religion. there is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness." - Dali Lama

i wish you (whoever my readers are if there are any) the best of luck in sending out love to those that have wronged you.

you know you didn't deserve it. so now do yourself a favor and be the first to find love for them, because god knows they will need it.

you are enough

YOU ARE ENOUGH.

I can't say this to myself enough.

why do we constantly make lists?

why do we replay events (good or bad ones) over and over in our heads?

why do we dwell in the past or in the future?

why do we think that who we are in this moment isn't good enough???

We are all told to stay in the moment, and it is probably the hardest thing to do. But for me, I just repeat this mantra in my head, ....you are enough... you are enough....

cheesy. yes. does it work? yes.

Once we can stop searching for more, or clinging to what we have already accomplished (or failed at), we can see the happiness of this moment. it is the attachment we have to things other than the present is what feeds our unhappiness.

Everything you need, you already have in this moment

"Almost all our desires, when examined, contain something too shameful to reveal"

My desires to be something other than what I am right now at 12:08 on Tuesday, March 2nd are all useless. they don't bring me happiness now or later. so lets just get rid of them. and say to ourseleves WE ARE ENOUGH.

"let us live gladly! being as-we-are" - wei wu wei

give yourself a cardboard box

my parents ordered some crap online and it came in this huge cardboard box. and we left the box out in the living room and my cats have never been happier. it is crazy. i can just imagine them talking to each other "omg checkout this new hut dude!!!"

i bet it is the best thing that has happened to them since we switched up the cat treats.

the fact that this brown box can bring them so much made me think how simple it is to bring excitement back into our own lives.

we have to give ourselves a cardboard box.

my dad gave himself a porsche. and it has made him feel like a kid again. he can get in his car and loose track of time. just sit and stare and be content. and i think this is something that we are all missing. it is our longing for those days when we could carelessly run around in the grass with no real plan. we just did it because it felt good. and somewhere we loose this. we found it briefly when we realized alcohol brought us back to our youth (as bad as that sounds). but i can speak for myself that this release that i get from drinking has dwindled (trust me- i still like to get crazy once and a while).

but i am currently on the hunt for my cardboard box. i think this is why life is so challenging and confusing because at the bottom of these emotions is an emptiness.

and honestly i don't want a "thing" to replace this void. i want my outlook to be childlike. and somehow see everything with a smile and with appreciation.

maybe i want my whole life to be a cardboard box. and who says that it cant be.

"not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious"

find a way you can bring back your childlike joy. change your mentality. change your friends. change your clothes. do whatever, but find a new way. one that will make you happy and make you look at the world as you once did.

"Dear Prudence, won't you come out to play
Dear Prudence, greet the brand new day
The sun is up, the sky is blue
It's beautiful and so are you
Dear Prudence won't you come out to play

Dear Prudence open up your eyes
Dear Prudence see the sunny skies
The wind is low the birds will sing
That you are part of everything
Dear Prudence won't you open up your eyes?"

and to you jenny beckman - get your audi!!!!!

a reason to reflect

maybe this is a simple question but - how come we don't just like everyone?
why do i feel compelled after meeting someone to say, "oh i did not like her vibe". that may be my instincts coming up to warn me. but i also think it is important to analyze what traits in that person made me come to such a conclusion.

let me back up. i once read that everything you dislike about someone else actually represents something that you don't like about yourself. TRIP ON THAT!

when i heard this, it made me think about this person that was once apart of my life. i remember not liking her negativity and her constant need to judge and pick people apart. but now i see that this trait that i found so ugly in her was actually a fear of mine. it was a part of me that i always worried would come out. tucked away was my own desire to critique people and sort their traits into being good or bad. this behavior that was so blatant in my friend was actually an issue of my own. it was something i disliked about myself.
yes, this person was not good to have in my life and had to go. but also it was a blessing because it made me look at myself in a new light. and forced me to dig up some of my own insecurities.

i will be honest it's scary. and at first you are going to deny it to yourself. believe me my first reaction was to run from this discovery. i fed myself bullshit that i was this positive person, always free of judgment. let me say this -no one can be something all the time. no matter how great you think one part of your personality is, there is always a flip side. this may be confusing and even disheartening. but uncovering this flip side will release a lot of problems and will open you up to so much more.
"the art of living lies less in eliminating our troubles than in growing with them".

so in response to how come we cant like everyone? i think we can. if we do enough digging and reflection of ourselves we can begin to let more people into our lives.

its interesting because after writing this i was thinking of that person that i learned this from... and there is no way in hell i want her back in my life.
but i am still grateful for the experience i had with her. i gained something from it. it wasn't a life long friendship - it was more. i gained knowledge about myself.
thus i think allowing more experiences and more people to pass through your life makes you a better person and eventually helps you find love in more places.

"With love I will tear down the wall of suspicion and hate which they have built round their hearts, and in its place, I will build bridges so that my love may enter their souls. "

“Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment.” - Tao Tzu

talk nicely to yourself

In a non creepy way this older man struck up a conversation with me... and we talked for a couple of minutes and then at the end he said... - "you are so beautiful, you have the rest of your life ahead of you."
It was so nice. It made me feel good all day. How great is it that someone who I just met can say so little and yet have such a positive impact. It was so easy for him to extend this complement and it inspired me to be more like him. Pay a complement to someone that honors their light.
For me it is always easier to find the beauty in someone elses appearance or actions, but I hardly ever look at myself in that way. I always replay the negative things and let my mind become consumed by how "stupid" i acted. or ill look at myself in the mirror and literally say - "you look like crap." how mean!!! I would never say this to anyone else, so why do i think its okay to say it to myself?
Talk nicely to yourself.
Practice positive self talk. we all LOVE something about ourselves, so why not fill our mind with those thoughts and think less about how we could have made the past different or how we could make our present self more "perfect".
Love yourself now. and celebrate it.

"We are what we think. all that we are arises with our thoughts. with our thoughts, we make the world". -buddha

and for those who are not strong enough to operate their minds in this positive way, help them by giving them a complement. snap them out of their negative pattern. they do not deserve to continue to beat themselves up. so spread the love.

"the love we take is equal to the love we make." -the beatles

hard work can never be wasted

Before bed I was doing some yoga stretches and thought... why am I doing this? it scared me how cynical i was being about something that is so good. good for my mind, body, and soul, and yet I was still questioning it. wondering what was making me set aside this time and put all my energy into touching my toes. wouldn't it be easier to just get in bed and watch Keeping up with the Kardashians?

true, yoga can be boring in the beginning, but you just have to open up to the possibility that it will feel good if you just stick with it. i think this is how we have to see our daily routines or our seemingly pointless jobs. yes, right now its like walking through quicksand. but we will get through it. and it will benefited us.

just remember - nothing is a chore. in one way or another we are giving gifts to ourselves. and sometimes those gifts are not realized right away. and that is okay. it will become clear later.

"you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life." -Steve Jobs

"I renounce the finite for the Infinite,

whereas you are renouncing the Infinite for the finite" - Indian yogi

no need for a quarter life crisis

While taking in my 10 minutes of sun (I try to sit outside and let the sun hit my face for at least 10 minutes a day... has a lot of great health benefits and helps you sleep better at night)...

... I realized I am 22.

My dad yells at me for being an age-ist (not sure if that is a real word, hence the hyphen)... because I am always shocked when I hear a persons age and make some overly judgmental comment about how old 65 is!!!

And when you really think about it, who gives a fuck about your age. you always hear people saying you are only as old as you feel and bla bla bla. and o you can be young at heart and stay young forever. but this is not my revelation.

my age gave me relief. i thought about how much i had truly accomplished for really only being able to talk coherently for a mere 20 years. i mean think about it, most of us have written "scholarly papers" (lets just pretend those papers were thought out and well researched), we have built lasting relationships with people who were nothing but strangers, we have drunkenly sung karaoke and in the same night still managed to get home safely to our beds, and we have planned and re-planned adventures in our attempts to seize the day. and i think it is time we give ourselves some credit.

we have done a lot. and I know I freak out thinking WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH MY LIFE.

but i think we are already living it. and doing a pretty damn good job.

so relax.

"go make a life, not a living"

and what about this- --- there are 40 year olds out there that are still running a muck and haven't figured out their "way" and then BAM in one year everything falls into place and they are in their state of flow at 41 !!! holy shit!!! 41 !!!!!

but who cares!!!??? that was just the way it was supposed to happen for them and now at 41 they are sublimely happy... and i am sure they wished they hadn't spent all that time worrying about when their life was going to come together. just have faith that it will. because it will.

just relax.

"all human wisdom is summed up in two words; wait and hope"

"success is blocked by concentrating on it and planning for it. success is shy, it won't come out while you're watching"

now go RELAX.