personal – Page 9 – Artistic Apathy

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~

Reflecting on my Vacation Overseas

For a couple of months I’ve had the pleasure of spending sometime overseas with my family in the Dominican Republic. I was received well and treated like a guest of honor. All in all, it was a positive experience and I’m ever grateful I came.

I got to explore around and see things I’ve never seen before and also re-visit some things I had seen but had changed. The trip brought on a sense of nostalgia and adventure. It was like being in a home away from home.

I had no idea I had so much family and now that I know I feel less alone. Just knowing that there are more people who care about you whether they’re around or not makes a huge difference.

At times I felt antsy to get home and work on my new projects but I stayed busy here writing blog posts, stories and other fun activities that kept me productive. While antsy at times I was never desperate and enjoyed my time here very much. Time seemed to slow down on the island. I was forced to look at myself a lot throughout this whole experience and asked myself what do I regard as important and family being one of them.

Now the journey is nearing its end and I will be returning home tomorrow. I look forward to working harder and being a little more appreciative and also helping others.

Lift you off the Ground

Words can’t express what you are to me.

When no one is around, I have you but you may not even be aware just how much you impact my life. I wish you could know it every day, just how much you matter. I know sometimes you don’t feel so good. I want to be the person who can lift you off the ground when it feels like you’re sinking. Cheer up.

Don’t let life get you down and always look towards a brighter future. You came at a time when I was really losing myself and thanks to you I found myself again. If you can do that for me, I know you can accomplish anything you want.

Sometimes I don’t feel worthy of you or anybody and I want to just hide and disappear for a while. But you’re always there when I come back and you never turn me away. I hope that we remain like this for many years to come. I feel like I’ve struck gold with you.

No I won’t name you by name. If I told you all this I would feel overexposed. It’s not really something that’s accepted… nonetheless I hope you accomplish everything you set out to accomplish. And always know you have at least one person in your corner. Who wants to see you happy everyday and winning.

This is to you.