Category Archives: self improved

The nocturnal time-bomb

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Last night I had a nightmare.  I have no recollection of the horror at all but I awoke in the wee hours of the morning and I was sobbing, full on heaving sobs, and tears were streaming down my face.  I can honestly say I’m relieved that I don’t remember the theme of the night terror that I survived. Naturally, it got me thinking about nightmares and why they occur.

Nightmares are simply a combination of our history of events and many of those nightmares are caused by the stress of those same calamities.  Whether we realize it or not, we may be dealing with some issues that take hold of our subconscious and wreak havoc in our dream world.  We may not even comprehend that we are holding onto so much of what happened in our day, or our week, but it builds up like a brick wall that crumbles in our sleep and the shrapnel plummets into our waking moments.

Stress is fickle creature.  It can inhabit our daily life as much as it creeps into the blissful hours that should be our time to recharge.   When I went to bed, I carried with me each particle of energy-draining angst that I had accumulated throughout my day and the stress of what has been happening with my home.  Nightmares and dreams paint a picture of what is happening in our life.  Whether that portrait is drenched in vibrant colors or tarnished with mottled shades of black and grey, the visions in our sleep depict our mood and illustrate the tension we are storing in your body.

I am in awe of the seemingly limitless catastrophes that a human body can endure and process.  Any type of mental anguish it represses during the day will certainly appear in our unconscious state giving us signs that we are walking on a ledge.

We need to find a way to clear our negative energy before the weight of our day begins to pull down the blankets of our eyelids.  We will at least have a fighting chance of supplying the artist in our sleep with a pallet of spirited rich colors instead of the monochromatic, threatening spatters of charcoal and black.  If we can free our head of that ticking time bomb called stress, we can reclaim our restful night of unadulterated sleep.

Journey back to me

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It was a collaboration week for me last week and this time I put some words together with TwinDaddy from Stuphblog.  I’m sure you all know him and if you don’t, you are missing out!!  Take a few minutes to check out his diversity and genuine talent.  Here is what we came up with.

Journey back to me

I put you up there

not knowing that you would fall.

The pulse of the rain matched my heart beat

as I watched you tumble from that pedestal I put you on.

When our love ended, you had further to fall.

 My illusion of you faded.

Your ruse succumbed to reality

as softly as a leaf falls from its tree.

That pedestal floated gently to the ground

when at last you unveiled your true self.

Although my heart was shattered,

it was easier for me to pick up the discarded pieces.

I recognized those parts of myself that I lost,

eviscerated pieces of my soul that you took.

I could finally begin to rebuild the person I was.

Piece by piece, brick by brick,

a new masterpiece painfully crafted.

A new me, a stronger me

able to withstand torrential emotions,

lithe enough to dodge abusive traps.

Your journey was a plunge to the death of the disguise.

My path was a quest to rebuild what was taken.

I emerge stronger, my scars will heal.

I take back what was rightfully mine.

I put myself up on that pedestal.

pedestal

Fragments of myself

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I have been reflecting a lot lately – looking back at the phases of my life where I defined myself in terms of my relationships with other people.  I even introduced myself with those titles.  I was always a daughter, a sister, a step-mom, a wife (now ex-wife) and it has only been recently that I have begun to describe myself in terms of who I really am – me.

All of those monikers are still a big part of who I am, or was, but they are only pieces of my bigger puzzle.  I have found new ways to describe myself that truly incorporate the essence of me and not just how my being relates to other people.  After years of missing the most integral part of who I am, I have found the proper words to define myself.

puzzle-pieces

(image credit: loridennis.com)

In the past, I had deconstructed myself and put smaller pieces of me into everyone else’s puzzle.  I was happy to be the daughter or the sister.  I didn’t feel lost nor did I feel any sense of being an incomplete person.  I merely slipped into the shadows of the lives around me.  I became an extension of them and the fault of that circumstance was all mine.

After many months of contemplative thought I have become aware of a new sense of self – a confidence to simply extend my hand and introduce myself with only my name.  There is no longer a follow-up delineation of how I relate to anyone other than myself.  I am, in the simplest of definitions, me.

Those fragments of myself constitute a big part of my life but they are no longer words I use to acquaint myself with anyone new in my life.  Eventually those pieces of my puzzle will fall into their rightful place but that place is not the definition of who I am.

Don’t be afraid to speak up

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We all have opinions, beliefs and desires. Some are more apt to share these with others and some feel the need to stifle their thoughts and not share them with anyone. But what makes one desire more worthy than another? What makes one opinion more valid than another? The mere definition of opinion is meant to allow for a broad spectrum of beliefs to hold validity and not be based solely on fact.

Having the confidence to verbally express your ideas is a rare gift. So many of us second guess our thoughts but we need to find the freedom to speak up for something for which we hold true value. Our opinion is our own, it is that simple. No singular person has the right to tell us any differently. And if we are not prepared to speak our minds we lose a big piece of ourselves in that process. We lose our own permission to feel the way we feel and the comfort to portray thoughts and feelings in a way we deem appropriate.  I gave myself the permission to say what I feel through the words in my blog.  While I appreciate comments and criticism along the journey, I have enabled myself to share my voice on a page and speak my mind without worrying what outside influences may try to do to change my opinions.

We ultimately do ourselves a great disservice if we cannot find our voice.  Perhaps the words we utter could give someone else a perspective they would have never considered and, in turn, our reality could shift if we listen to others that have the boldness to speak up and share their thoughts.   We need to become comfortable with the power of words and how to use them to create positive change in our lives.   We should never live in fear of expressing ourselves.  Those words and ideas are what constitute the people we have become and an open dialogue is the best path to forging a truly honest relationship.

We need to stand behind the voice in our head and know that it is fuelled by our heart.  Speak up, speak honestly and speak your mind.  Having an opinion is important, being able to say it out loud is liberating!

I saw your car at the bar…

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I’m amazed and thrilled at how the times have changed.  Not so long ago there was a certain stigma attached to people who “had” to leave their car in the bar parking lot after a night of imbibing.  They were ridiculed by their friends for being so intoxicated that they had to leave their vehicle behind because they were too drunk to drive.

You could drive by the pub in the early hours of the morning and see people doing the “army crawl” across the lot, continually peering over their shoulder to see if they were being watched while they skulked across the pavement to retrieve their vehicle.

car in lot

Nowadays having the clear thought to leave your car behind is being worn like a badge of honor rather than a badge of shame. People that have the foresight to give up their keys and find an alternate way home should be seen as heroes.  If you have to say to yourself, “I’m fine”, you’re probably not fine enough to drive.

On the rare occasion that I go out for a  few drinks, I am one of those people who will put their keys aside and choose to be judged, if you will, for leaving my car in the parking lot and choosing to get a ride home.  Knowing that I choose to put other people’s safety ahead of my need to have my car in the driveway in the morning is a great feeling.  Even in a small town like the one I live in, choosing to do the right thing just feels right.  I may only encountered a deer or a wild turkey, or nothing at all, but I choose to not take the chance of something greater being in my path.

It takes just a split second to make that choice not to drive if you have been drinking. And it also takes a split second to be on the wrong side of the line and cost someone else time in the hospital or even worse.  Make the right decision – park your car for the night and get that safe ride home. I’d rather be the one the one they point the finger at to say “I saw your car at the bar” then to be the one that caused the accident that cost someone their life.

Don’t hate the haters

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There will always be people out there with nothing but negative energy.  They hate their job, they hate where they live and they take that bitterness into every moment of their day.  They hate us for being positive.  So why should we reciprocate and send that hate back to them for being haters?

We can’t hate the haters.  Being around negative people makes me want to be even more positive than I already am.  It’s better to be hated for who you are instead of being loved for who you are not.  Nothing annoys a hater more than your forgiveness. They seek conflict and if they don’t get it, they will just hate you more.

hater

There is a fine balance in the world and we struggle to maintain that level with every ounce of positive energy we have.  Being around people who constantly have that dark cloud hovering over them motivates me to make a conscious effort to keep my mood light and happy.

I’m not going to lie and tell you I haven’t had moments of immense dislike within me, but I choose to rise above that venom that can penetrate the soul and find the lesson in the situation that caused that hatred in the first place.  My mother always said “it takes all kinds to make the world go round” and I now know what she meant.  If it weren’t for the haters, we wouldn’t be able to appreciate being the lovers.

We need to learn to rise above that feeling of hate and figure out what that anger is teaching us.  The haters will never have that perspective but we can motivate ourselves to see beyond the malevolence that bubbles within us and move beyond the hate.

Appreciate the haters for teaching us how much better it is to love and be happy.  Life is short – appreciate every second of it and don’t waste it being angry.  I don’t ever want to look back on my life and say I wasted a single moment dwelling on a feeling that didn’t make my life better.

A much needed change of pace

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Tonight was brilliant.  Tonight I came home from work, tuned out all of the outer distractions and got caught up on reading the many blogs I follow and have been missing recently.

Starting a new job always means putting in a few extra hours to learn the ropes – a  few extraneous minutes of time to make the new bosses happy that they made the decision to bring you into the fold of their team.  But with that additional effort comes the realization that other parts of your life suffer in the wake of your desire to be appreciated and recognized.

Lately, my writing has been staggered, at best, and my reading has resembled something close to non-existent.  Life will return to normal when the summer staff come to ease to burden of my multi-tasking, but until then I will steal any moment I can to form thoughts into words and to catch up with others afflicted by the same writing bug that infects my mind.

I appreciate their sentiments, I get lost in their prose and I long for the precious minutes that thoughts form sentences that have meaning.  I yearn for those cherished seconds that words escape from my mind without giving the ideas a second thought.  Contemplation percolates, idioms spill and paragraphs are created.

bloggin

(image credit: imedia.brooks.ac.uk)

To blog or not to blog is not the question.  The only query that remains is how to create more hours in the day to do all of the things I need to do and save times for the things I truly love to do.

Turn around

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We live in a fast paced world.  Everything is digital, messages are sent instantly and we are rushing to get to our next appointment, spin class, second job or meeting with friends because we pack so much activity into a short span of time.  Our ever turning world continues to spin and we respond by maintaining our pace of putting one foot in front of the other.

But in our rush to live our lives, we may have overlooked a few important moments that deserve a second glance.  We need to take the time to turn around every now and then and make sure we absorb the things that are pushing us in the direction we are going.  Sometimes the moments we never give a second thought require a few more minutes of pensive consideration to see the value in that frame of time.

owl

(image credit: Dan Kaiser)

Stop and turn around.  The view behind you may be worth that pause for reflection.

A million tiny pieces make up the bigger picture

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It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see – Thoreau

(image courtesy of dreamstime.com)

The panorama of our lives is directly proportionate to the depth of beauty we allow ourselves to ingest.  Our lives are like a Kaleidoscope pattern and the aesthetics of that pattern, although they evolve constantly, still enchant us and give us new perspective in each shape that is created.  The colors become richer, deeper in hue, and the beauty is carried over from one frame to the next.

The true beauty that we see does not come from looking at the picture as a whole, but by dissecting the pieces and finding the unique qualities that combine in those fragments to create that spectral portrait.   The attraction to the harmonious blend of colors cannot be appreciated without recognizing the million tiny little shards of color that make up the sum of all its parts.

Take the time to really see the beauty in your life.  Give yourself the extra time to really absorb what you see and look a little closer at all of the smaller parts that help create that bigger picture.  It would be sad to think that some of the muted colors were overlooked because you didn’t take the time to let your eyes focus on those million tiny little things.

Burning the candle at both ends

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It begins innocently. We take on more and more with each passing day and begin burning that candle at both ends, always with the thought in mind that never the twain shall meet. But they do meet, and someone always gets burned.

burn the candle

In today’s economy and struggling markets people take on more burdens to cement themselves to their jobs. Fiscal responsibility tends to equate to physical and emotional exhaustion but we do what we have to do to secure our stability. It has become a dog-eat-dog existence.

Although we may see that candle as everlasting and continuous, we lose a little piece of our sanity with each drip of wax that is dispelled. A layer of our resolve, like the dripping wax, is melted away from us and collectively pooled into a well of fatigue. The moments of freedom we so carelessly took for granted are a thing of the past and the work day increases in its longevity.  As the winds of our reality fan the flames, the candle burns faster at both ends leaving us with more of a sense of panic and less candle to burn. The days seem longer, the nights seem shorter and we strive to hold fastidiously to our workaday reality.

It is our individual responsibility to snuff that secondary flame – to only allow ourselves one wick with which to burn our energy. If we allow others to dictate how much of the candle we burn at one time we may as well cast ourselves into the inferno and spontaneously combust.

The purpose of a candle is to burn for long periods of time, from one end only, and cast a glow of light that is warm and comforting. Burning that candle from both ends decreases the amount of enjoyment that candle is meant to purvey and exponentially diminishes the enjoyment that is elicited from that one single flame.

Strike your match carefully.  Predestine how much of that candle you are willing to ignite and at which pace you choose it to soften and dissipate.  If you light it sparingly, it will last much longer and the enjoyment of that flame will last that much longer.