journal – Page 17 – Artistic Apathy

Is God/The Universe Trying to Tell Me Something?

Hi everybody. Long time no see.

If you’re wondering where I’ve been at, I’ve been here and there.

Really, my life has been improving at a steady rate and for a long time I wanted to write about it but the right inspiration never came.

Now I have something to say.

Is the universe or God or the cosmos (whatever name you have for that mysterious force that seems to nudge you in the right direction) actually on my side?

A couple lines ago I mentioned how my life has been improving very fast. For a long time I had crippling anxiety and depression which rendered me unable to leave the house for days. Now I get out more and my social skills have improved tenfold, I’m able to talk to people and people enjoy my company. I’m starting to see all the possibilities ahead of me and it’s great.

There’s still one thing, though. You know the saying “old habits die hard?” Well that’s been true in my case. I feel like the universe has given me an opportunity to step into alignment with myself. It seems many good things are just falling in my lap and I’m being asked to fully realize myself as a person.

Still there are some toxic habits I can’t seem to let go of but am fully aware of their toxicity. Why do I do them? Well because it’s easy and makes sense at the time. I know that there is a higher calling for me but I ignore it and focus on the temporary. I don’t realize that negative emotions all come to pass and I need something now to help cope with it instead of just being there for myself emotionally.

For that reason I’ve come to feel really stressed and in this limbo of sorts. It’s like a friend of mine discussed. He said it’s like you’re a caterpillar in a cocoon trying to turn into a butterfly but you’re still holding onto your caterpillar ways so you can’t become the butterfly.

Another analogy would be you waiting on a train station and the train begins boarding, waiting to take you to the next phase but you’re stuck contemplating whether or not you wanna get on. The train doesn’t wait for you and so it leaves. Now you’re stuck with the feeling of regret that you didn’t get on board. The train comes back around every so often waiting for you to board. But it’s not until you actually get on board that you can be taken to a new place.

I feel like I was supposed to stumble on that video, it put into words exactly what I’ve been going through. And I was assured that everything would still be okay, however long it took for me to get on “board.”

Maybe someone will see this and relate. Thank you for reading.

Dream the Dream

I’m a pretty big dreamer. I can call myself that. But nothing more magnifies this idea than my actual dreams. At night I dream expansive imaginative worlds with their own narration. None of them like the other.

Often times, like most I suppose, I forget that I’m living a dream and when I wake up there are a few moments where I have to ground myself in reality and think “that was a dream.”

It’s often said dreams are a portal to another world. I’ve heard it been said that dreams are the reality and we’re actually in the dream during our waking hours. I don’t know about all of that but I do know that in my dreams are encased my fears, anxieties, emotions, hopes, dreams. Things that I don’t normally express during my waking hours.

It’s almost like a little playground where one can act out the deepest inclinations of their mind. Although, sometimes I’m surprised by what I dream, it can be horrifying.

While dreams aren’t always pleasant, they can also be a way to connect to others vicariously. Maybe you’d like to say sorry to someone whose trust you broke. Maybe you want to finally say goodbye to that late family member, properly.

In dreams, I get to interact with those in my life who are important to me but are miles and miles away. In dreams I get to talk to them face to face, I can hold them and feel them. It’s a way for me to deal with the emotional burden of them not being here and sometimes there are moments in dreams I wish I could actually live.

Last night I had a dream that a friend sent me a video of them in New York City. It was snowing and it was apparently Christmas by the garments that they had on. I went outside and there were Christmas decorations everywhere. I went up a long hill and raised my head to see the sky was filled with dazzling stars. What a beautiful dream. So beautiful, I had to immortalize it forever in a drawing. Which I often gawk at because I know I’ll never get that dream back.

But hey, you never know. Life is just dreams waiting to be made reality.

I wonder though, if someone could remember every detail of their dreams from while they were asleep, I’m sure there’d be movie scripts, inventions and lucrative ideas just waiting to be expanded upon.

Thank you for reading~

Until next time.

End of a Chapter, Start of a New One

Recently I’ve been feeling like a chapter of my life has come to a close and I’m starting a new one.

To better illustrate, I’ll explain it to you.

Recently I faced an old fear I had head on and came out on top, which partly inspired the last post. That and the bird. But anyway, I had an old story of limitation in my head. It’s basically those voices that tell you you can’t do something because it’s never been done or you won’t amount to nothing.

As I faced this fear, my whole body was freaking out and I nearly threw up. The whole time though I was just staying with my nervous self and not freaking out over being nervous which in turn would only make things worse. I also gave myself permission to throw up if I needed to. That may sound insane but I basically gave myself the space to be nervous and by doing that I was there for myself when I couldn’t really count on anyone.

Long story short I challenged the old story and proved it wrong. Now something I had huge anxiety and worry over isn’t even a problem anymore. I still get nervous sure but I can rest more knowing I am safe. I still have many fears that need to be faced.

That was the closing out of that chapter. The old story. The new chapter began when I began to look at all the possibilities now that I faced this fear. It was like stepping into a new world, you couldn’t believe how impactful it was when I did this one thing and didn’t run away.

I’m trying this new thing where I’m just honest about my feelings. I now understand the phrase “the truth will set you free.” You really liberate yourself from your mental prison when you just talk about what’s weighing you down.

I’ve stepped into a world where I only could have dreamed of months ago. And it’s all because I decided to face my biggest fear head on where others would run and hide. And that’s not to shame those people because I was scared too. But it’s more of giving myself a congratulatory pat on the back. We all deserve a little credit every now and then.

This has been the writer at Artistic Apathy.

Leap of Faith

I’m here at the park and I’m listening to Yumeji’s Theme by Shigeru Umebayashi and I see a bird.

This bird is perched up on top of a swing set and I notice how gracefully it dives with its wings tucked and lands on its two feet.

I thought “wow where do they get the confidence to do that?” It seems scary, even for a human. I thought “duh, it’s a bird of course it knows how to fly.” Then I had another thought.

Before that bird had to learn how to dive like that. Before it learned it had no idea what it was doing. It was probably a series of trial and errors. I don’t know, I’m no bird expert. All I know is that bird had faith and knew that it had to learn to fly to survive.

And so it did. Now it does it so gracefully and effortlessly it’s astonishing to watch.

Here it is, now I’m going to equate this to real life.

As I watched the bird I thought about how us humans are scared to leap or dive sometimes. But if you never take the plunge you won’t know what’s on the other side. You’ll never gain the confidence that that bird had when it dove to the ground.

Many of us are scared to leap whether it be quitting a job that doesn’t serve us or embarking on a business venture. But the truth of the matter is, we don’t know how good and expanded we’ll feel once we finally do take that plunge.

Great confidence and freedom comes from things such as these.

Think about the bird. How free it is. It can soar and fly. Wouldn’t you like to fly? It goes wherever it wants and isn’t tied down to any one place or thing like many of us humans are. We’re tied to our emotions, our financial situations, our jobs, friendships and relationships that don’t serve us anymore.

Wouldn’t you like to be more like the bird? Lose that jealous friend, quit that job you hate, conquer your fears and see what’s waiting for you on the other side. Be more like the bird.

10 Days of Meditation – Results

Now the title may be misleading. I didn’t meditate for ten days straight. I just made it a habit to take some time out of my day to devote to myself. Particularly in the morning.

While I don’t want to make this journey all about the results, I think it’s important to put into focus what I’ve learned and hopefully you all can get something out of it as well.

Now if you read my previous blog post about meditation you would know I’m no stranger to it. I started my own practice what seems like forever ago but is only a few years. A lot has changed since then.

Mainly what got me back into doing it is my desire to be more engaged in the present moment. I found myself often times retreating into my mind and fighting inner demons all day long. I wanted to dispel those demons and feel more in the here and now and not in the future or past.

So far it’s been helping me to do that. You could call me a intermediate meditator so I quickly fell back into the practice. I thought nothing would come up during the meditation but to my surprise many thoughts and stories and feelings came up.

My job was to not tamper with them but to simply leave them be. They would come in and do their thing for a while then they would leave. I had an old thought pattern that was eating me away. When I began “allowing,” it quickly became almost a non-issue. Today I can say it’s one less thing to worry about.

I’ve learned a lot of things about myself. The days have been mostly fair to me but the other day I was struggling with an inner pain. Depends on your definition of struggling though as I was learning how to be with it. I came up with an interesting metaphor. Old pains are like a wounded animal you find by chance. You take it in, nurse it back to health and love it and when it’s time you set it free.

That’s exactly what I practiced. I spent the day feeling the pain in full. No denying it or trying to stuff it down. I didn’t eat it away, I didn’t engage in some kind of awful addiction to numb it. Although I’m not judging those who do.

I was feeling anxiety about an upcoming event and I started getting all these thoughts in my head. An old story about me played in my head, essentially a limitation and I found myself “predicting” the future.

My mind took me to a place where the future event had already happened and I had screwed things up. It was merely a thought but I was living it in the here and now as if it was real. I realized that no one can tell the future but the pain would not go away. It was calling out to be felt/loved like a small child.

I had a conversation with a friend and we talked about how there are good days and bad days and something that was so common sense clicked later when the following day I woke up feeling much better. The pain tried to creep back up later but I was wide open to accepting it and it did its thing and left.

What he said just kind of drives home the fact that all pain is temporary and we don’t have to feel this way forever. When you’re in pain you project into the future as if you are always going to feel this way but that’s just not true. There are good days and bad days and our job is to be there with ourselves on those bad days and not run from ourselves which makes us feel more isolated and alone and does the opposite of what we are trying to achieve.

The future event didn’t even end up happening so that just proves further how much of it is a lie. Now I have another event coming up and I don’t feel as anxious after the awareness I’ve gained.

I’m more aware of my body and I can feel myself literally resisting thoughts and how my body reacts to certain thoughts/feelings/emotions.

It’s all pretty enlightening stuff but I’m only a step of the way there.

Today I realized quite literally what it means that we are the sky not the clouds. As I laid on my back and watched the clouds drift by. We are infinite, we are the sky–not the cloud which is passing by.

I’m looking forward more than ever to where life takes me as it seems that everything is lining up perfect for me to step into my power. The test is here. No pressure though.

Thank you for reading~