Tag Archive | healing

Honesty vs. Being an asshole {let your heart lead the way}

Nov28

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“If you find yourself saying ‘But I’m just being honest,’ chances are you’ve just been unkind. Honesty doesn’t heal. Empathy does.” ~ Dan Waldschmidt

Honesty is one thing. Being an asshole is quite another. Lol ;-D

So many people brag about “telling it like it is” or how they are “brutally honest” or love when people are “honest to a fault.” Like that’s a good thing. But I don’t see how it necessarily is.
Maybe it’s cute when a three year old blabs everything that’s on her mind but for adults…not so much. Honesty is a good quality and a good thing in general or in theory but it’s not always necessary. Too many people, in my opinion, have jumped on this bandwagon or trend of “I tell it like it is” or “speak my mind without hesitation” and “if I don’t like you, you’ll know it” and act like it’s a good or cool thing when it’s really often just an excuse to be insulting or say uncalled for things at the expense of others. That’s a turn off to me. What is so cool about it? What is good about it? How is that a good quality to possess to make it a point to always make it known you don’t like someone or something about someone? It’s ok not to like someone. And not to like things about people. But we don’t have to be vicious about it. As adults we can not like people and not like things but suck it up and be civil when we have to encounter them. It’s not being fake; it’s being mature and being kind.  So, yes honesty in itself is surely a good thing. But it’s not always necessary to express something merely for the sake of honesty. I’m not saying never, but just not always. And in many cases, I don’t believe it’s really about honesty but about being rude just because someone feels like being rude but not owning up to it and pushing it off on being “real” or honest. 

For example, commenting on someone’s picture of her new haircut or new dress or glasses with something rude like “meh” or “this isn’t one of your best outfits or pictures…” or “wow you put on some weight!” or “what happened you used to be so hot, you really  let yourself go!(yup, I actually saw a man write this on his girlfriend’s old pictures of herself a while ago!)” in the name of honesty. Is it really necessary for your honesty in this case? This is just a random example, not meant for any specific incident or person now. But I have seen these comments and heard similar things in person to/about various people.
It’s uncalled for in my opinion. 

I love the brilliant quote above. Empathy helps heal. If we don’t like someone’s new haircut or someone’s new clothes or whatever someone does, we can still be happy for that person for getting something s/he likes or being happy. If someone puts on weight, so what, and don’t you think saying that to a woman is very rude and can be damaging? If we don’t like how someone acts, we can tap into our empathy and try to better understand.  

I think when people are “brutally honest” in a rude way, it’s probably often because they aren’t happy either with themselves or current circumstances or just in a bad mood that day and want to try to drag others down or get out their unpleasant emotions being rude to others. So instead of calling them an asshole (like I just did lol), we can try to also show compassion and tap into our empathy for them. I don’t always do this. Sometimes when someone is unkind, I react with more unkindness(either to the person directly or complaining about the person to someone else), which is tempting sometimes but not helpful. I’m much better with reacting to negativity and unkindness with patience and love either being kind in the face of it or just holding my tongue (which can also be an act of love) so as not to further fuel the negativity, pain, or anger of someone. But I’m still not perfect at it. 

So this is a good reminder to me as well!

Let’s chuck that brutal honesty out the window once in a while, kick it to the curb and give empathy a try instead! 

Here is a beautiful and heartwrenching song and video about holding off on the unpleasant words and letting love lead the way!

What Do You Say – Reba McEntire – mobile

What Do You Say – desktop

“So what do you say in a moment like this
When you can’t find the words to tell it like it is
Just bite your tongue and let your heart lead the way…”

😀

Hugs & love, 

❤

Xoxo Kim ❤

To Heal, We Must Feel <3

Apr29

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“I miss the tears, I miss the laughter
I miss the day we met and all that followed after
Sometimes I wish I could always be with you
The way we used to do
Now and forever, I will always think of you
Now and forever, I will always be with you” ~ Carole King (Now and Forever) ❤

I wrote this post last night and then I was too exhausted to post it! Lol WordPress app, while I’m incredibly thankful for it, is not the easiest to deal with. 

Last night I fell asleep with and this morning  woke up with a heavy, heavy heart. As I mentioned on here a couple months ago, my coworker and beautiful friend, Diane, died suddenly and so unexpectedly. She was my coworker and I never hung out with her outside of work but in the nearly ten years I have known her, I really only thought of her as my friend, nothing less.
She’s the one I wrote about in a couple posts before. She has sons similar ages to me and I always loved how she would brag about me as if I were her daughter. 

You know how there are “flare ups” of grief? Grief never goes away or completely heals but for many people, it’s not always how it was when the loss first occurred. The rawness or worst of it takes the backburner, for lack of a better way of saying it, and eventually is generally no longer the main or only thing on the mind even when we think of those we have lost. Other, happier, thoughts and emotions begin to prevail again and the grief and heartache remain but are easier to cope with in general. But sometimes that horrible grief returns and sometimes even feels worse than at first. It appears and reappears as long as we live. 

Ever since I met Diane years ago, this is the longest I have ever gone without seeing her and talking to her. Two months. For no specific reason, the last two days my grief has been flaring up. Grief over a loss is not bad or wrong, it’s what occurs, in some cultures, when we lose something or someone we know or love. I heard that in some cultures they don’t grieve how we do here in US and other cultures. When they lose someone to death, no matter how tragic the incident, they just celebrate that person’s life and feel love and not devastation or pain. They are brought up that way. It’s hard for me to grasp that concept but I find it intriguing. But here, we do grieve hard when we experience a loss. It’s not a choice, it just occurs when we experience a loss. It’s considered healthy, expected, normal. I don’t want my grief to ever leave me, I just wish it were easier to cope with when it’s like this.

I often wish I can take away people’s pain and suffering even if it means I would have to take on that pain and feel it instead. But I never would take away someone’s grief even if I could, even when it’s very devastating. Because, at least in our culture, we’re supposed to experience it in our own way. It shows that we are touched by the person/animal (I’m just as devastated when animals die but I expect them to die sooner since they usually do not live as long as humans and to me seem generally more fragile) who left us. But I would help someone bear the grief if I could or take on a portion of it if the person wanted me to. Anyway, that can’t happen. 

Today as I was on a bus going to my therapy appointment, I was grieving hard but out of the blue, I was struck even harder. My whole body felt so fragile and so breakable and one of the worst, deepest, kinds of pain I ever felt just took me over.
Some aspects felt violent. It was emotional pain but the whole experience felt so physical. And it was very strange. It almost felt unbearable like my tmjd cluster-like headaches, which are the worst pain I ever felt. It throbbed throughout my whole existence feeling like it runs deeper than body and “mind.”

I felt like collapsing onto the floor, screaming her name over and over, and curling up into a fetal position, and writhing in agony like when I have the headaches. 
I felt horror and disbelief, heartache and pain and I kept thinking how does anyone ever possibly handle the loss of a friend, family member, pet, is it even possible to handle something like this…I felt something close to panic. 
Like a trapped or “claustrophobic” feeling. Death is so permanent. The loss felt inconceivable. So bizarre. So incredible (and not in a good way) that someone, someone with experiences and thoughts and emotions, memories, and a breath, a whole life, can be gone in an instant. Just like that. Never ever to be seen or heard again. 

All those experiences, those memories, that whole life just vanishes into thin air.

Just like that.

In an instant. 

All gone.

Forever. 

It did not last long at all, this experience on the bus. And it wasn’t all bad. It was deep and brought me closer to myself.
 I have experienced grief and loss before so it’s not completely new but it’s not something someone ever really gets used to. No matter who dies on us, another death is still so new and difficult. No matter how many we have lost before, the next one can still feel impossible to bear. 

I still can’t believe that Diane is really gone. It feels wrong and unnatural even though I know it’s not. It feels confusing that one moment someone can be standing somewhere not sick at all, nothing at all wrong with the person,  then literally one second later be dead of a heart attack. It is so scary. It doesn’t really make sense to me but I know it does make sense. It’s just part of living. It happens every single day. Heart attacks just come out of nowhere and destroy and end people’s lives. But it hurts desperately.

My worst pain is knowing that Diane can never experience again, not happiness, joy, or love. My worst pain is for her. Not for me. Or even the others who miss her and knew her better than I did. 
Living people can find a sense of healing and happiness again even after tragedies and devastation but the poor victims never get that chance. People say they don’t know they’re dead and don’t know they are missing out on life and lots of good things, and so cannot feel to suffer but that’s exactly my point, they can’t feel anymore and it’s heartbreaking to know that. 
So my worst sorrow is for the dead, not the living. 

Life is hope. 

But I also have another kind of pain, a selfish kind. I miss her and wish I could see her. And I know her family and friends do too. I see things every single day that remind me of her and it’s both comforting and painful. I think of her every single day. Never a day goes by when I don’t think of her. And I always will as long as I live. I knew her well. I suspect that as the days go on it will become more comforting than painful to see/hear things I know she loved or would love. But now the grief and pain is so raw. Raw grief occasionally does come flooding back for many of us whether it’s a year later or twenty years or more. It just comes and goes, appears and reappears. And it’s ok. 

As the saying goes “grief is the price we pay for love.” 

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(this is the only picture I got of my day yesterday before my phone battery gave out on me – those little flower petals were everywhere, blowing in the wind all around me)

When I was eleven years old I was at a party with my family in a very big house with a very big pool and like a hundred people around outside in the gargantuan backyard. When no one was looking, I slipped and fell into the pool at the 12 ft. Side. And I couldn’t get myself back out right away. This was before I learned to swim. I went into a panic and I felt my chest become “compressed” or something and like it was being crushed and my lungs attempting to gasp for air. It was suffocating. Horrifying. It felt like I was drowning. Luckily there were floaties all throughout the pool. Somehow I pulled myself up onto a kiddie float that was there and onto the wall and got myself out. 

My grief reminds me of this incident because it feels so similar, like my chest is really being crushed and my lungs struggling for breath. Like I’m being held under water. I’m not speaking metaphorically but literally. It couldn’t be anymore physical if I was eleven years old and back in that pool flailing and panicking, grasping for the float to save me. But I know I will pull myself out of the worst of it and carry on. 

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On some occasions I feel another kind of strange feeling, almost like missing a limb, like my arm was ripped off and should still be here but isn’t and now in its place is a weird tingling or numbness or something. I don’t know if it makes sense but it’s what I feel occasionally with grief. It’s not a feeling in my arm, I don’t know where I feel it, maybe in my head?  my chest? my whole being? I think that’s it. It’s just there. Here. Nowhere in particular. But it reminds me of a body part being traumatically torn off but still feeling like it’s supposed to be here or like part of it still is but mostly not. And in its empty space is a kind of numbness. I guess grief can do strange things to us. 

I’m not spiritual in this way or religious so I do not believe that Diane can touch me or see me or that she’s still alive somewhere or in a “better place” watching over me and all those she loves, but at some moments I want nothing more than to feel her loving arms wrap around me in a comforting embrace. I miss her voice, her love, her laughter, her cursing, her hilarious ways, her stories….she was really funny! She was very loud and cursed a lot in a funny way just in everyday conversations, not trying to be funny. 

She wanted to learn Spanish because one of her grandsons, a toddler, only speaks Spanish and she was trying to teach him English. One day at work she came running over to me yelling “omg! Kim! My grandson just said his first English word! He dropped something and yelled ahh fuck!” lol I burst out laughing! She was horrified. His first English word she unintentionally teaches him is fuck! She was trying to get him out of it fast! 

One day, many years ago, my dad came to my work and as a joke he yelled to me “hey! What are you doing?!” in a mock angry voice, just as Diane was going by in a car and she did not realize that he’s my dad and was joking and thought he was messing with me and she angrily yelled at him “She’s working! What the fuck’s it look like she’s doing?!” lol my dad was pissed! But Diane always looked out for me. Always. 

She did so much for me, tried to help me find a job I wanted, gave me big tips at work, always told me she loves me and how wonderful I am, would bring me food over that she thought I would like as a surprise, invited me to her house with her big family for thanksgiving in case I was going to be alone,
So much….one day for St. Patrick’s Day she made my family cabbage and ham, for me to take home.  ❤

I even miss the things she did sometimes to annoy me! Things I never would have thought I could miss! Lol But now I laugh about it. 😀

A few weeks ago, while on a bus, I looked out the window and saw a lady with her back turned to me who looked exactly like Diane at that angle. I couldn’t believe it, my breath caught. If Diane was alive, I would have been convinced that lady was her. I would have went to work and said “hey I saw you today!!!” 

That’s how much she resembled her at that angle. Diane was very small, short, and thin, with shoulder length, dark black hair, and she sometimes wore a long jacket and that’s exactly like this lady. I couldn’t see her face but I wanted to run off the bus and hug her. I stared and for a few seconds I imagined that Diane was back on this Earth and that I was getting to look at her again once more for a few last seconds. I felt kind of blessed to have this opportunity to feel like I was looking at her. I tried to trick part of my brain into really believing it was her just so I could have a few more seconds with Diane on Earth. I felt so greedy. Like I wanted as many seconds I could have to pretend and believe.  It may seem a bit twisted but I was consumed in grief.  

It felt so bizarre seeing her like that knowing it couldn’t possibly have been her. 

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And Diane wore hearing aids. And she would often put her hand to her ear to adjust the hearing aid. It was one of those “tics” or very mundane, mindless little things, a “personal habit” or detail no one ever thought anything of but now that she’s gone, that little mundane detail that was so much a part of her, stands out to me. It really makes it harder to believe she can just not be here anymore.  It’s a bit difficult to explain in words. But I keep thinking about it.

Anyway, my body has been longing to listen to songs that aren’t very uplifting. Uplifting songs help me immensely and I am a big advocate for having a playlist of positive, happy, uplifting songs, especially for low moods. But all I been wanting to do is listen to slow songs, sad songs, not ones to get me pumped or uplift me but ones to match my mood. Ones to trigger even more deep feeling in me, even if it’s agonizing feelings. And ones that remind me that pain, loss is part of living and others can understand. But some other part of me wanted to reject, deny, repress, listen to uplifting songs, happy songs, repress that grief and heartbreak. Pretend it’s not there, that it’s not real. Then it won’t have to hurt so much. 

So on that bus today I struggled with what to do. 

Last night I found a blog by a man named Ryan and he sends morning e mails to help us start our day. 

http://www.wakingupwithryan.com/

I had to be up very early today and on the bus I read his e-mail and it was perfect for my situation right then. He actually wrote:

“To heal it, you’ve got to feel it.”

Seriously?! Can those words be any more perfect for someone in my situation?! Imagine the struggle I had while on the bus wanting to repress and deny then out of nowhere seeing an e-mail in my inbox, that came through that very same morning, with that title! I felt as if it was written just for me! Thank You, Ryan! Thank You, thank you! 

He encourages us to let our emotions, feelings, thoughts flow, emerge, just be. Even when it’s painful and our heads want to deny it. How can we heal and come to accept when we repress and deny? It will still be here, buried, suffocating, drowning. It needs air and to be nurtured. 

So I listened to these slow, soft, gentle, sometimes sad songs on the bus. Songs to match my emotions, my heartache. And I admitted that I’m broken over this tragic loss. I never denied her death, only wished it would not be and denied how it affected me. But I allowed Ryan to inspire me. 

It was heartbreaking but just what I needed in that moment. Mostly I am helped and inspired by happy songs but when that’s not the case, it’s ok to listen to those sad, slow songs. 

It helped me heal. 
Then after that I listened to the happy, fast paced song to help balance the situation and my mood. “Coast to Coast” by the Stompers. And it was the perfect balance! 

I encourage you to check out his blog and subscribe if you like that kind of stuff! And to maybe let his words inspire you to feel, accept, and just be. 

http://www.wakingupwithryan.com/

I embrace my grief and I carry Diane in my heart and I will allow her ways to keep inspiring me.  One way we can honor those we love who die, is to incorporate some of their ways into our own lives, if they were loving, we can try to be more loving even if we already are, we can try to make it a point to make it more frequent. If they were very active with certain causes, we can carry that on if we also support the causes, if not we can be inspired to work for a different cause we support. If they helped people often (like Diane did, she would give people her last dollar even if she did not have money, she would borrow money then if someone else needed the money she just borrowed, she would give it!), we can start helping people more. If they were happy and full of joy, let’s try to remember to be happy and full of joy. Wear their favorite color, listen to their favorite song (although this can be too painful for a while), try to keep those we love who are no longer on Earth with us, alive in our hearts, keep their essence going.  

I wish I could be loud and curse a real lot like she did but it’s just not in me. Lol She always told me she hoped I would always be sweet and gentle, pleasant, and quiet, and wonderful no matter what, even when I get another job where I may encounter difficult people and situations.

I will. 

After my therapy appointment, I was in Center City, walking to the bus to go home. I am not depressed today and have been very joyful underneath the pain. I saw one single yellow flower today surrounded by lots of green and it uplifted me then out of nowhere I saw two small, white butterflies tenderly flying around the flower. Also, more pastel pink flowers have been blossoming on the trees, into the bright blue sky, and everywhere has the fragrance of sweet Spring flowers and the sky was bright blue with pretty fluffy clouds. It was warm but cool and breezy also with comforting sunshine. And little flower petals blowing all over, everywhere, in the gentle breeze. I found a pretty pink fragrant flower on the ground and brought it for my mom. It was already dead and crushed in my pocketbook when I gave her it but she still found it beautiful. 

It couldn’t have been a more perfect Spring day and cannot be a more perfect Spring night.

I would have pictures of my beautiful and little  journey out and about but my phone battery was drained! So I just cherished the moment and the day without getting pictures!  Still perfect! 

Something strange happened. I take pictures only slightly less than I breathe. Lol So when I see something beautiful, while I still cherish it and live in the moment, I also automatically have to take a picture. But yesterday it never even occurred to me to take a picture of one of the beautiful pink floral trees and the bright blue sky above it. I just stood and stared in awe. Then I realized and went to take a picture but remembered my phone battery drained. Lol I’m not even sure what the point is of sharing this here but I’m just fascinated and it was part of my day. 

So even though I wasn’t depressed walking to the bus, I held my head slightly lowered and struggled with my heartbreak. I usually never walk with my head down. I love to look up and see people, smile at strangers, make eye contact(I’m so shy and even though I long to smile at people I don’t know, I am sometimes too shy but I’m better and better at this. I often think what if they think it’s weird or don’t care to have strangers look at and smile at them but it’s amazing how many people smile back and actually seem to appreciate my attempt at connecting) but I felt so heavy in grief. A sweet young woman with blond hair, maybe a college girl, was sitting on the corner and said to me hello, have a good day. I looked up and smiled and said thank you. I usually would have been a bit more friendly with a more uplifted tone and said something like “thanks so much, you too..” But I did express my appreciation with my smile and appreciative tone.

 She helped me more than she probably knows. I don’t know why she was sitting on a street corner or anything or why she said that too me. I know she said it to help me. Her words and tone were so sincere. But I don’t know if she was saying it throughout the day to random strangers or just to me because she sensed my griefstricken and heavy heart.

But either way, my broken heart welled with love and gratitude for this beautiful Earth angel who set out to uplift a stranger. It seems like I write about this so much here on the blog about how one simple touch, word, or gesture can do wonders and it really can. I can never say it enough. 

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” ~

Leo Buscaglia

It is so healing to experience and even to remember later. To know someone cares to uplift people.

Now I have another “ordinary angel” to add to my infinite list.

Even though Diane isn’t here anymore, even though she’s dead and I’ll never see her again, I am blessed and thankful to have known her and I have so many beautiful memories of her and our days together. My heart breaks for her sons, her grandchildren, her other family, and friends and all who know her. I know her sons and grandchildren and other family members/friends who lived with her and know her better than I do and knew her outside of the context of work, have to be suffering more than I am. While it’s all of our loss and a loss to the whole world, the loss is truly theirs and most of the sympathy and healing messages/energy should go to them. 

One thing that I find comforting is that the quote “you don’t know what you have ’til it’s gone” While often true, doesn’t apply to us here. I always knew I am blessed to have Diane as my friend, to have her love. And she always told me how wonderful she thought I am.

While there are definitely moments this quote can apply to me about things, I try to live so it won’t usually. I would like to encourage us all to live in such a way that when we lose someone or something whether it’s a person, an animal, a job, or even a gadget like a phone or microwave oven, that this quote doesn’t exist for us. Let’s all know what we have while we still have it.  

Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of her, she did not like getting her picture taken. But I see her in my mind and remember her voice so vividly. And I know it’s enough. 

My heart goes out to you if you are struggling with grief, whether it’s new raw grief, a raw flare up, or just the same old grief you felt for years. Hugs & love to you. I am reminded to reach out like that girl who reached out to me today. Reach out to a stranger or friend or family member who is struggling or just for no reason. Who wouldn’t love a friendly smile or warm hello even if we aren’t currently sad or struggling in any way?!  Thank You, sweet girl!! 

And I am reminded to be mindful of the beauty all around us even when I’m struggling. There’s always something to smile about and be thankful for even in darkness and pain.

Much love to you ❤

Xoxo Kim

Winter

Jan6

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Today is the first real snow day this Winter! It has been snowing all day and the snow is landing! A Winter wonderland! Yay! 

Of all the beautiful four seasons, I am most inspired in Winter usually. Inspired to create and take pictures and also just feeling inspired. All the seasons are inspiring but there’s just something about Winter….

Something about the gray, the cold, the barrenness, the sometimes somberness, the bare tree branches, the glistening white, the footprints and paw prints in the snow, cat, dog, and bird paws! 

Something about dreary, dreamy landscapes and the warm, cozy feeling. The idea of firesides and soup brewing on the stove. A steaming cup of hot tea, frozen sunsets, Frigid sunrises, and Winter pj’s….

Something deeply inspiring!

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I love the feel of warmth that flows through my entire body when I hold a steaming cup of hot tea or hot cocoa in my hands! The feeling of towels and hoodies just out of a dryer.

For the last few days I have been suffering devastating headaches related to my chronic pain disorder. These headaches are migraine- like headaches, not as bad as the cluster-like headaches I can get where I can’t lay down or be still and sometimes scream through the night til my throat is raw. But still absolutely devastating.
Just devastating.
Sickly headaches on the one side usually, where I have to lay down, sensitive sometimes to light and sound. Dizziness. 

A throbbing achy ache. It hurts.

Sometimes my headaches and facial pain generally occur, most days, and sometimes they go away and generally I’m pain-free, most days, or only in very mild pain that doesn’t interfere with me. It comes and goes. 

But for the last few days, they have been occurring, most severely  in the afternoon. A severe ache. Sometimes it’s hard to stand up.
They go away after a while but some days, quickly return.

My physical pain, even when it’s bad, usually doesn’t depress me even though I’m prone to temporary fits of depression. But it does sometimes provoke me to go into a “depressed-like” state. A state where I don’t get out of bed, sometimes for fear of making the pain worse, sometimes thinking what’s the point when I’m in so much pain. I stay in pj’s most of the day, avoiding things I like to do like putting my makeup on, art journaling, going out, even getting dressed..but it’s not depression. I still have the desire to do things, still have interest and appetite, it’s just I feel that the pain will either get worse or mostly ruin the fun of doing anything pleasant. And sometimes the pain is so physically severe I literally can’t stand up or I’m too dizzy and it throbs so much. 

But it’s not good to think that way.
I’m going to feel the pain anyway so why not throw a little fun and inspiration into the mix!
Doing fun things as long as I’m physically able to, can help significantly. Help me cope, distract me, and allow me to think of something other than the pain. This pain hurts me not only physically but emotionally. It hurts to hurt so much. 

But I won’t let it conquer me. If I want to stand up, I will stand. If I want to go out for a walk I will go. If I want to take pictures, to draw and paint, do stretches, I will. It takes courage and strength some days but I will muster the courage and the strength. 

There is so much beauty to be thankful for! 

Also when I keep doing fun, inspiring things even when it hurts, the habit will become more and more ingrained, the habit of having fun, coping when pain is overwhelming. 

Sometimes my pain even sends me into a deep, deep abyss of dark despair or a full blown panic. But I always find my way back to the sunlight.

For a while my pain disorder has been mostly not acting up, I have been not hurting everyday, and even when the pain would arise it was brief and mild. But this disorder flares up terribly once in a while. It’s ok though. It’s to be expected and at least I’m alive to feel pain, right?! 😀

Whenever I want to crumble, I remind myself of the goodness all around me. The beauty of Nature, my books, uplifting quotes, people, animals, taking pictures….the fact that I’m alive, the fact that pain strengthens us and teaches us, deepens our empathy, compassion for others, and our wisdom if we allow it. I won’t let my pain be in vain. I won’t let it conquer me.

 “Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.” – Anne Frank

My head has been throbbing today but when I look out the window and watch the little flurries, when I take a walk and listen to the white crunching, feeling the cold embrace me, when I catch a snowflake on my tongue, tasting the wet coldness, and smell the fragrance of wet concrete and hear the cars sloshing through the sludge in the streets, it temporarily burns out the pain, the emotional pain that accompanies the physical and it helps me cope with the physical pain. I look up a foggy street of white like a dream and the magic ventures through my veins. I know I can go on.

Here are some of my pictures and my favorite Winter quotes! 

“I prefer winter and fall, when you can feel the bone structure in the landscape—the lonliness of it—the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it—the whole story dosen’t show.” ~
Andrew Wyeth

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“And finally Winter, with its bitin’, whinin’ wind, and all the land will be mantled with snow.” ~ 
Roy Bean

“We cannot stop the winter or the summer from coming. We cannot stop the spring or the fall or make them other than they are. They are gifts from the universe that we cannot refuse. But we can choose what we will contribute to life when each arrives.” ~
Gary Zukav

“People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.” ~
Rogers Hornsby

While I usually promote living for the moment, not overlooking Now just to want something else, I love this quote and concept because it’s so full of hope. It shows that we have things to look forward to, whatever season (whether a season of Nature or a season of life) we are experiencing that may not be pleasant to us at the moment, it will end and something seemingly more pleasant will begin. It’s fantastic to live for now but also great to have something to look forward to and know seasons are fleeting. 

“The winter solstice has always been special to me as a barren darkness that gives birth to a verdant future beyond imagination, a time of pain and withdrawal that produces something joyfully inconceivable, like a monarch butterfly masterfully extracting itself from the confines of its cocoon, bursting forth into unexpected glory.” ~
Gary Zukav

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“Even in winter an isolated patch of snow has a special quality.” ~
Andy Goldsworthy

 “You can’t get too much winter in the winter.” ~
Robert Frost

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 “While I relish our warm months, winter forms our character and brings out our best.” ~
Tom Allen

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“Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius.” ~
Pietro Aretino

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“Once something has outlived its usefulness in one area of life, its purpose for being in existence is no longer the same. The leaf that captures a stream of sunlight, and then transfers its energy to the tree, serves one purpose in the spring and summer, and another completely different one through the fall and winter.” ~
Guy Finley

Each season, each day, each stage of life, each sentient being…is important.

 “Each solstice is a domain of experience unto itself. At the Summer Solstice, all is green and growing, potential coming into being, the miracle of manifestation painted large on the canvas of awareness. At the Winter Solstice, the wind is cold, trees are bare and all lies in stillness beneath blankets of snow.” ~
Gary Zukav

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“It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.” ~
Charles Dickens

“I love the scents of winter! For me, it’s all about the feeling you get when you smell pumpkin spice, cinnamon, nutmeg, gingerbread and spruce.” ~
Taylor Swift

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I wish you much love, happiness, warmth, joy, and healing if you need a sense of healing. I hope you are staying very warm & cozy wherever you are if it’s cold. My heart goes out to anyone struggling with the cold weather or chronic pain or sickness, grief, depression, anxiety/panic, eating disorders….anything. We’re all in this together and we can help lift each other. We won’t all experience all of these things but we can use whatever experiences we have, no matter how serious or less serious, and our basic empathy to better understand to some degree, each other’s pain.

“I will keep a smile on my face and in my heart even when it hurts today.” ~ Og Mandino ❤ 😀

Xoxo Kim 

My (somewhat recent) Dream {you can be greater than anything that can happen to you}

Nov19

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As I posted here previously, I have vivid dreams that I frequently remember. Sometimes they’re inspirational.
My dreams aren’t usually bad, negative, or scary. They’re often strange. Bizarre beyond comprehension. And when not bizarre beyond belief, usually just quite ordinary like an extension of a normal day. But I can often gather little parts of them, bizzare or not, that can be analyzed or interpreted. I like my dreams. They seem so real. And I love that I remember them so easily, I even remember dreams I had years ago.
My dreams are so profound and so intense, like I can experience my emotions in my dreams just as strongly as during my waking hours.

I believe that dreams are usually just stuff we have been thinking about consciously or unconsciously whether it’s important or not so much. I think it’s often just our brains releasing everyday stuff in symbols or images as we sleep. Like a kind of replenishment. I think sometimes we have certain dreams for a certain reason that we aren’t consciously aware of. Some deep, seemingly unreachable, part of the Self is attempting to reveal something. I love the mystery of dreams and I think they often try to take unconscious thoughts and put them into the conscious mind.

Sometimes I know things unconsciously that I don’t realize in my waking hours. These messages come to me during my slumber and I’m often blessed enough to carry the message out of the dream and into my wakening.

In another post I mentioned that I have a recurring dream while I sleep sometimes, when I’m depressed and suicidal or having suicidal thoughts. The dream is someone chasing me and trying to kill me and in my dream I want so desperately to live and will do almost anything to survive. I’m passionate about living. My desire to live in this dream is overwhelming and I would do almost anything to save myself. This is a dream I usually only have when I’m depressed and having some degree of suicidal thoughts.

I believe it’s my unconscious mind letting me know I really do want to live, deep inside I want to live, not to listen to and give into the deadly thoughts and urges, that the depression is deceiving me into thinking I should die. The depression is clouding my Truth. My Truth is pure like sparkling white snow glistening on a cold Winter day. But depression comes along like a speeding truck headed straight for me, leaving tracks of mud upon my pure Truth. But no matter how much mud and soil and sludge it leaves upon my Truth, my inner self, my Truth and my authentic Self is still pure and sparkling, still fierce, still strong. No pain can take that. My Truth is that life is always a blessing even when it doesn’t feel so, that there’s always beauty and hope and something to carry on for, something to smile about and be thankful for even when pain or circumstances are overwhelming. No matter how much it hurts. Even when it feels like it will never get better, like all hope is lost. My truth is that I have a purpose and always will. My truth is that I want to live to inspire anyone I can, to share my own story, my happiness and sadness, my joy and pain, my beauty and my uglines, my strength and my weakness,and bring hope and healing to anyone in need.

A few months ago, I have been depressed again and had another dream. I dreamed that someone died. A woman named Angie. She’s not someone I know for real, I don’t know where my mind got her. I don’t think she’s based on a real person that I know of. But I read a fact about dreams that says when we see faces in our dreams they are people we once saw in our reality whether we remember seeing them or not, even if those people were never significant in our lives, even if we saw the face only once, and even if we haven’t seen them in decades. Our brain can’t make up faces.

The faces/people we dream may not, in the dream, be based on who they really are in reality. It’s just the same physical face/appearance, nothing more necessarily. The example I read is that as a child we may have watched a man pumping gas into our dad’s car then years later dream of a serial killer and it’s the man pumping the gas! His face! Lol So while the face is real he wasn’t necessarily really a serial killer, he was just a man pumping gas whose face made it into a dream years later and the brain made him a serial killer. In the dream the serial killer isn’t that man we remember pumping gas at one point. It’s that our brain just took his face to incorporate into a dream.
Now, I have absolutely no clue how true this is. And if it’s true I have no idea how someone found this out. How does someone know our brains can’t make up faces that never existed? Maybe it’s common sense how someone knows but I’m lacking that common sense or maybe some research reveals it somehow. Some kind of neuroscience? It’s fascinating but I don’t know much about it. I did go to college for psychology and took many brain classes, even held an actual human brain in my hands, along with a spinal cord. My professor had/has a human brain collection in her basement. They float around in jars of fluid. Lol please don’t ask because I don’t know!

She’s some kind of brain researcher in a lab and keeps the brains for her own entertainment. I would too! Lmao
This sounds like something out of some kind of science fiction or horror movie but it’s reality. So yeah.
I don’t remember over half the shit I learned back then. But it’s ok at least I’m humble enough to admit it! ;-D
It’s funny because sometimes I dream about this fact about dreams and faces that I’m not sure is really a fact. Lol
As a matter of fact, it’s only in a dream that I remember first learning it!
I don’t remember learning this “fact”/fact while awake. I dreamed about learning this then one day I woke up and thought it was just some weird thing I dreamed out of nowhere. Then I looked it up and saw it’s actually said to be a fact! So I must have learned it and forgot but my unconscious self remembered and had it tucked away until I fell asleep one night.
I haven’t found any reliable sources to support it.
So anyway, if this is true, Angie in my dream who died, must be real since I saw her clearly in my dream. Maybe her name isn’t really Angie.
Maybe in reality she’s not who she was in my dream. And hopefully she never really died.

Maybe I saw her on a bus one day years ago or in a class in college or in a picture on Facebook….who knows?
But in my dream she died. In my dream I did not know her well at all but the news of her death devastated me. This isn’t quite a stretch or unrealistic as in my reality I find the death of someone to be devastating, even the death of people/animals I hardly know or don’t know at all. Of course, it’s not as deep as for people who actually knew the person/animal but I am just filled with sorrow over the losses I hear of. I can see on the news that someone died or I read a Facebook status and am somewhat somber the rest of the day off and on or even the next few days. It’s not always equal for every one that I see. Some things hit harder for whatever reason.
But in my dream I was in a room full of people who all knew the woman who died. I don’t know where I was in the dream but in the dream it made sense. I think it may have been inspired by the building of the mental health clinic I go to for depression. There were big wooden tables and chairs, like lunchroom tables, and a lady in charge….in charge of what I don’t know…., she was going around to different people with a clipboard and paper and pen and when she got to me we sat on the chairs, facing each other. I was grieving and felt a kind of fear and I sensed this woman before me was trying to push the problem under the rug, not wanting to talk about the issue directly or in depth because it was painful and uncomfortable.
She asked me questions I can’t remember. She wrote down my answers. I even remember the paper in the dream, clearly. It was white with black text and black boxes to write the answers in.

Then the last question she asked me I do remember. She said something like: “What is the one quote you want to live by, choose a quote you truly believe in, one that is important, a quote you want to be the foundation for your life?” I thought about it for a few seconds and almost instantly a quote popped into my head. For real I was depressed and in my dream I was depressed and grieving. When I’m depressed I often have certain insecurities thinking I’m not good enough for anything or anyone and in my dream that’s how I felt.
I was afraid to answer. Feeling as if my answer wouldn’t be good enough. Just because it’s my answer, because nothing about me is ever good enough, it seems. I don’t always feel this way, only sometimes, especially when I’m depressed. And in the dream I felt this.
In reality I was feeling a bit hopeless.
It carried over into my dream.
And the quote that came to me in my dream:

“You can be greater than anything that can happen to you.” ~ attributed to Norman Vincent Peale

I told the dream lady(who I must have also seen in my waking hours if that fun fact is in fact true, but I don’t remember her either, in my reality) and she happily wrote it down. She seemed impressed and she said to me “Now, you always remember that, don’t you ever forget it.”
And then I woke up.
I was and still am in awe of the beauty my brain creates when I sleep.
Of course my brain did not make up this quote. If only…lol if only my slumbering brain were THAT brilliant!
This is one of my favorite quotes that helps remind me whenever something bad happens, whenever I’m in pain of any kind, depressed, struggling with insecurities or painful memories of any past event or day, grief, struggling with tmjd “cluster headaches”….that no matter what it is, I can be greater if I let myself. I can be greater than anything that can happen to me. No matter how painful or devastating or tragic or sad. I have the power within to rise above it. And that goes for you as well. We can all be greater than anything that can happen to us. We don’t have to give our power to other people, situations, events, pain, things, or anything. Generally and ultimately, no circumstance, no person, no thing has power over you unless you allow it.
We have the power over ourselves.

In some special cases, people do have the power to control us, situations get the best of us but in the long run, overall, we have the power over ourselves. We can choose to take it back when it seems to be taken away and pro-act.

Sometimes I let my pain, both physical and emotional, repress my Truth. I let it conquer me and my life’s philosophy. I let everything else, everything I know to be true to me, take the back burner and my pain prevail. But then it comes to me in my sleep because it never really left me. It’s still my Truth. It was there all along. And my dreams remind me…

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I encourage you to listen to your dreams and your truth. Not everyone can remember their dreams at all or enough to interpret them or glean any inspirational or useful insights but if you do remember them, it’s possible a part of you deep inside is trying to tell you something. Listen. Listen to your inner Self. Not just your dreams while you sleep but your waking Truth.
You may have values, opinions, philosophies, virtues that you generally firmly believe in or live by or want to honor and live up to eventually if you don’t already. But pain, either physical or emotional, situations, unpleasant experiences can cloud those truths and they become muddled and repressed and the pain becomes your truth instead.
Maybe the pain tells you you can’t go on or that there’s no reason to. Maybe it tells you you’re worthless or that there’s no hope, no point, no purpose, no beauty, nothing but pain. Maybe it tells you that you aren’t good enough, beautiful enough, not equal to everyone else. Maybe it’s just so painful it feels like you have to die to end the pain, whether physical or emotional, or just curl up in solitude and give up on everything.

You can find and develop your Truth and authentic Self through reflecting, thinking, tuning in, meditating, writing, looking for evidence throughout your every day and your whole life to see what you really believe deep within, think about how you handle or have handled various situations and how you felt about the situations and how you handled them(were you sorry you reacted a certain way? Proud of your actions? Was there some sense of dissonance with how you reacted and how you felt? Did the two match up?), think about how you really feel deep inside around certain people, in certain circumstances, reaching out to others, photography if it’s your interest, searching through books, magazines, images and words and seeing what jumps out at you. What captures your heart and resonates with you? It doesn’t matter if you know why something captures you or not or if you never knew something appeals to you til now. Your deeper self knows. I got this idea off of author, Sarah Ban Breathnach, searching through magazines, stores, catalogs without the intention to buy anything, just listen closely and see what calls to you, what clothes, objects, jewelry, vacations, people… call to you? Which ones tug at your deepest parts? Which ones make your pulse speed a bit faster? Which ones make you tingle all over?….glue pictures to paper or a journal and it’s your self discovery journal/journey….keep up with it often to keep in touch with your deep inner Self who may be buried beneath layers of expectations of others or society as a whole or yourself that you think you should be, buried beneath fear, anxiety, pain, and anything else.

Your pain is very real. But pain clouds our judgment making it not sound so we forget our authentic Self and our deeper Truth. Don’t listen to that pain when it deceives you. Definitely listen to your pain, tend to it, embrace it if you can, accept it, let it teach you and strengthen you and deepen your wisdom, but not conquer you and delude you. That’s not you. It’s part of you for sure, maybe even a significant loud part that screams in your eardrums, screams in your face. But screaming and throbbing and being loud doesn’t make it true. The true you is what deserves to be honored even when your Truth isn’t screaming and loud. It’s quiet and gentle and calm and warm and deep, whispering inside but it’s evermore worthy of being honored than that loud, screaming pain that demands you to give up and lose all hope and joy. It’s more powerful than pain and delusions, quiet and gentle as it is.

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Sarah Ban Breathnach is amazing! I love her, and she’s one of my greatest heroes, though I never met her in person. I would love to though! The book I referred to above with the self-discovery activity is “Something More – Excavating Your Authentic Self.” She also mentions self exploration and authentic Self activities in her book “Simple Abundance.”

Her books are mostly directed at women but they really can help anyone.

I wish you much love, hope, healing, happiness, and joy. And I hope you will always make the choice to honor your deeper self, your authentic Self, your Truth. Even when other people don’t like the true you, even when it’s hard to honor yourself. Always choose life, always choose you.

Xoxo Kim

My job <3

Nov18

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“Your job is not to judge. Your job is not to figure out if someone deserves something. Your job is to lift the fallen, to restore the broken, and to heal the hurting.” ~
Joel Osteen

My job is not to judge.
My job is not to figure out if someone deserves something.
My job is to lift the fallen, to restore the broken, and heal the hurting.

I wish you much love, hope, healing, & happiness!

Xoxo Kim

On Pain {Norman Vincent Peale}

Oct31

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“You can be greater than anything that can happen to you.” ~ Norman Vincent Peale

Last night I posted something about my experience with unbearable physical pain. 
It is super long and much longer than I would have liked it to be but I wanted to share much of my experience with the agony to get the point across and express my pain.
I want to thank the people who read/liked it. Thank You so much! I appreciate it deeply. I know most people don’t care to read extra extra long posts and most of my posts will not be that long. 😀 Only when I have a real lot to say all at once. Lol

Here is another post on pain. You don’t have to read my previous post to make sense of this one. 

It’s interesting how an extremely painful experience can humble us, deepen our empathy, allow us to be more in touch with and aware of the pain and joy of the world but it can also go the other way. It can lead some to become arrogant in certain ways with a hardened heart, less empathetic, less patient with those who seem to not have experienced as much pain. It can trigger some people to sometimes regard other people’s problems as trivial or not as worthy of compassion compared to their own extreme pain. I don’t think that reaction is wrong or that all people who think that way are completely heartless or that we should all have the same empathetic reaction, necessarily. It’s just my observation.

I can completely understand how someone’s pain or sickness is so bad the person just wants to scoff at someone whining over something so frivolous it seems ridiculous next to what that person is experiencing. I’m not innocent of this myself on some occasions.

We all react in our own way, ways that are best or appropriate or come easily for us based on our experiences and ways of coping, we’re all different and handle things differently and I don’t try to force people to be a certain way or usually judge negatively for how someone else reacts when it’s not how I would react myself.  

Some people and some things people say are cold, heartless, callous, and outright cruel to others. And I don’t support or promote it but I understand not everyone will understand and care.  And I still embrace them in my universal love. 

My reaction to very painful experiences is almost always deeper empathy or becoming more in tune or aware or being reminded that there are so many others suffering like I am and worse and less who need all the love, compassion, and empathy they can receive. 

I don’t believe that physical pain is necessarily not as bad or is worse than emotional pain. They can both be severe, moderate, or mild, depending upon the kind of pain, the person, the coping mechanisms someone has and other circumstances. 

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I was reading words that inspired Norman Vincent Peale. He inspires me and I want to know what inspired him. 

I am not religious or spiritual in a way that has to do with the supernatural. I am an atheist. I don’t believe in the afterlife. But I find inspiration everywhere, even in religious writings and things that people who believe in some god or gods say. 

Norman Vincent Peale was a very religious Christian man and well known minister and he is known for his work, “The Power of Positive Thinking.”

I came across his words on pain & suffering.

“Pain and suffering have wracked humanity throughout history. Evidence of arthritis has been discovered in the earliest skeletons of the past. 
My friend Lloyd Ogilvie, distinguished pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, California, once said that he had learned several important lessons from personally experiencing pain and suffering. He found he grew the most spiritually during those ordeals.” ~Norman Vincent Peale

& 

“No one welcomes pain. But, rightly faced, it can bring about great good. And we can triumph over it.”

He writes of Doug Williams, quarterback for the Washington Redskins, and how the man endured hours of dental surgery the day before the 1988 Superbowl football game. Then during the game, he injured his knee. But he still led the team to victory, breaking one record after another.

That is truly amazing!

Dr. Peale states that when we are struck by pain, we often ask the wrong questions, such as ‘why me?’ But more positive and productive questions are ‘What can I learn from this? What can I do about it? What can I accomplish in spite of it?’
There is deep wisdom in this and it’s so very motivational and helpful.

I have never asked “Why me?” I don’t want it to be anyone and it’s not “me” for any specific reason. I just got this disorder. It’s nothing personal against me, not a punishment I deserve. It’s just something going wrong in my body. Why not me? Why anyone? Because it’s the way our world works.

Some people get terrifying and agonizing sicknesses and disorders, both physical and mental, while others are blessed to never know that pain. But we are not victims unless we choose to be or unless we’re dead. To me, the only victims are dead. That’s not to say living people aren’t in despair and agony and are not suffering and do not deserve compassion. It’s to say no matter how dark it gets, no matter how deep the despair is, we can always choose to get up and pro-act as best as we can.

Here are some quotes Dr. Norman Peale loved by other people:

“In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these.” ~ Paul Harvey 

Yes! If you survived before, which you have since you’re here, surely you will survive again and again and again….when your pain comes in waves or clusters or patterns or just flares, just ride each wave like you’re on top of the world. As the Beach Boys say, catch a wave and you’re sittin’ on top of the world! Oh how easy it is to say and think this when things aren’t so bad but even in pain, sickness, fatigue, depression….it can be done. On a Facebook page for cluster headache support, education, and awareness, I saw this….

“On particularly rough days when I’m sure I can’t possibly endure, I like to remind myself that my track record for surviving bad days so far is 100% and that’s pretty good.”

“It takes more distress and poison to kill someone who has peace of mind and loves life.” ~ Bernie S. Siegel, M.D.

Yup! Physical pain and illness are not depression or a negative attitude. They can contribute to and trigger that but they are not it. They can be separated.  It’s important to keep in mind that we CAN be happy and joyful even in pain. There is still beauty. We may sometimes have to look harder but it’s there. Even with emotional pain, we can train our brains to seek out beauty and some sense of joy even when it’s hard.

“Diseases can be our spiritual flat tires – disruptions in our lives that seem to be disasters at the time but end by redirecting our lives in a meaningful way.” ~ Bernie S. Siegel, M.D.

Again, pain of any kind can teach us, strengthen us, deepen us, and guide us.

“One cannot get through life without pain….What we can do is choose how to use the pain life presents to us.” ~ Bernie S. Siegel, M.D.

This says it all! 😀 Let’s take all of our pain and struggles and use it all to our advantage. 

I found a few things that help me cope with the pain and the psychological consequences of having an extremely painful disorder. One of them is art journaling, writing, painting, gluing, arts & crafts…another is reading positive quotes and other things and sharing them. This also helps with my depressive disorder. Sometimes just seeing a positive quote uplifts me even when I’m not feeling it completely. 
We don’t always have to be or feel positive but it’s good in general to maintain a positive attitude, in my opinion. 
And sharing quotes and happy photos to help others helps me also. I don’t share positive things to pretend everything is good, I share them because it really helps me often and it can inspire anyone who may see it. Also I try to find songs about physical pain to help me cope, there’s one called “Headache” by Frank Black and one called “Touch Me I’m Sick” by Mudhoney. And one called “Novocaine” by Green Day which may be about emotional pain but it can also apply to physical pain.

“Take away the sensation inside
Bitter sweet migraine in my head
Its like a throbbing tooth ache of the mind
I can’t take this feeling anymore
Drain the pressure from the swelling,
The sensations overwhelming”

Don’t I know it!

 And one by Alice Cooper called “Pain” about all kinds of pain. Alice is singing as if he is Pain itself singing. 
“You know me, I’m pain.” 
“It’s a compliment to me to hear you scream me through the night, all night, tonight.” 
“I’m pain
I’m your pain
Unspeakable pain
I’m your private pain”

He also has one called, “The Sharpest Pain” not really about physical pain but still, deep, agonizing pain.

Lol what a gloomy subject to be writing about but pain is part of being alive. Sometimes, even sharp, aching, throbbing, burning, wretched, overwhelming pain.

Much love, hope, strength, comfort, joy, and healing to you who are reading this no matter what your situation is.

Xoxo Kim 😀

Serendipitous Strength

Oct8

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(that’s fake blood on my face for a haunted house attraction for Halloween)

I love funny and silly surveys for blogs and Facebook, like a list of weird, stupid, funny questions…would you rather be ridiculously rich financially but butt ugly physically or amazingly gorgeous, beautiful beyond belief physically but dirt poor financially? Would you rather eat hair or lick a toilet seat? Would you rather be in a dark, creepy room alone or in a well lit room with Michael Jackson? lol They’re funny questions. I would choose to be poor and beautiful. And I would lick the toilet seat over eating hair any day. Loose hair is disgusting. Aack! And I like Michael Jackson but not creepy dark rooms alone so I would choose the lit up room with him. ;-D

But anyway….i came across this question

Would you rather be buried alive or stabbed to death?

Horrible thought, right?!

But I find it enlightening. It provoked me even more to think about the strength deep within me that I accidentally found and accidentally developed.

I would choose to be buried alive.

Not so long ago, I couldn’t even imagine saying that. I just couldn’t imagine.

First of all, if I am buried alive, maybe I can find a way out or someone can find me before it’s too late. Being stabbed is so violent!
There are rare(at least I hope being buried alive is rare!!!) cases where someone has been buried alive and somehow escaped or was found before it was too late.

I used to have an extreme fear of being closed in with or without others there with me. Closed in anywhere. Even a large room or building. I would avoid closed in places like the plague. Then my fear got somewhat better when I was eighteen years old in college. In this one building I wasn’t aware that we were allowed to use the stairs. It turns out, we actually were but I never knew til a long while later. Everyday I had to go in that building I had to desperately hope there were others waiting to go on the elevator when I was because I couldn’t bring myself to go on alone. I used to go early and just linger around the hall waiting for someone who was going on. (creepy, right?! :-O lol) I never said that I was waiting. Just when I saw someone going on, I would too. If the person got off before the floor I was going to, I would get off too then walk up the steps to the floor I was going.

Then I met a girl. When I was 18 years old. One who had the same class and we got talking to each other and I found that she had the same problem!
One day I got to the elevator and she was waiting too! And she told me she’s seriously afraid of small places and won’t get on without someone else! What are the chances?! I was embarrassed at first and wouldn’t really tell people but I opened up about it when I met her.

We conquered our fear together. 😀

I always thought of this fear as a weakness and never met anyone else that I knew of who has it this bad, my dad is like this but his never seemed as bad. Everyone I knew could get on with no problem, it seemed.

And when I met her, I was sooo happy! Lol Also, we were both very shy until getting to know someone better but we both had no problem with public speaking because it’s just something we had to do for class. We both loved meeting people we never met but were often too shy to initiate socialization first. But somehow we found each other! I haven’t seen or talked to her in many, many years. But the impact is everlasting. ❤

After that, I got more used to going in small places, elevators with people and I was mostly only panicked when I was closed in alone. I often had nightmares of being closed in or trapped somewhere alone.
I couldn’t even stand walking by elevators or being in the same building with one. This was always the only thing that scared me about hospitals. I would shake walking through narrow staircases even with people. I felt like my body was turning to jelly.

One day when I was a teenager I had to get on an elevator alone. I was in the US Constitution Center at some event and the only way to leave the building was to get on an elevator. They said I had no choice. There was no one else around and the security guard said I had to get on the elevator so I did. I went into a serious panic and I pressed my fingernails into the skin over my hip bone and just kept scratching until it bled and the doors opened. I was so scared, that was just what I did, unconsciously.

I never worked on this fear specifically but during my personal development journey, my quest to find healing, working on myself to help heal my depression and cope with tmjd “cluster headaches” without realizing it, I was conquering my fear of being closed in. With my personal development plan I teach myself and train my brain to know I can handle and conquer anything. To know I will always be free no matter what position I’m in in this life. To know life is a gift no matter what. To see positivity and opportunity in any situation no matter how dreadful. I trained my brain with meditation and quotes and music and songs and writing to stay calm and composed for the most part, in any situation no matter what, no matter how painful physically or emotionally. I still struggle with this a bit sometimes, especially with severe physical pain. I’m much better at handling deep emotional pain than very severe physical pain. A certain level of physical pain that I experience occasionally can still seem too much to bear.

It’s at a frightening level and it’s not common that people ever feel it to this extent. Not even prescription pain pills can touch it.
But I work on myself constantly and even when I’m freaking out aggressively over a tmjd cluster headache, I still keep telling myself I will survive.
I was trying to heal my depression and cope with it and cope with those head attacks.

And much to my amazement this was helping me all along with my fear! My phobia(i wasn’t actually diagnosed with a phobia but it may have met the criteria, I don’t know for sure) wasn’t destroying my life because I was just able to mostly avoid small places but there were some occasions I couldn’t and had to be closed in somewhere.

Some people have a phobia where they can’t avoid the thing they fear or even if they can they can’t help but dwell on it constantly and it runs their lives. That was never me but there are occasions I embarrassed myself in public, especially as a kid, when I had to go on elevators or narrow staircases. And occasions I was extremely fearful knowing I had to go in a large building where there’s elevators. Somewhat recently I went on a job interview. I did not get the job but I had to go on an elevator by myself, they wouldn’t let me on the stairs going up, I asked, I was told no. I wanted to run out but I had the interview scheduled and I knew it wouldn’t be good to have them waiting and I never show up, years ago I would have been out the door so fast with the interview the last thing on my mind. So I reluctantly got on the elevator, alone, and while my heart started to speed a bit because of being closed in and for a few seconds I was overwhelmed in immense fear, like panic, I handled it so well. No panic. No breakdown. Just staying calm. It was so surprising. And just as much of an accomplishment as getting a job! Maybe more?
It wasn’t a happenstance. I worked to get to this point. (though unknowingly lol) I am so strong now. In so many ways.

Then leaving the building I had a choice to take the stairs or the elevator. Just a couple years ago I would have taken the stairs without a second thought. Even last year. But on the interview I made the CHIOCE to take the elevator alone to get more practice and was even more calm than the first occasion going up! What a great accomplishment for me!
It may not seem that big to some people but for someone like me, it is a tremendous thing.

Also I don’t like closing doors to small rooms even in my own house but in the bathroom there are parakeets flying around and we have to close the door. I was getting a shower one day and had to close the door. The handle is broke and I got locked in! I went into a bit of a panic. Not a full blown panic, but an intense fear, I guess you can say. Not how people with panic attacks do. Not that bad. But I was pulling the door and banging on it hoping someone would hear. No one did. But I calmed down and reminded myself. Life is beautiful no matter what. I have the sunlight streaming in the window, I have my senses, the parakeets, meditation, Buddhism and Stoicism ….the window is too small for me to fit through so that wasn’t an option. And it’s on the second floor, it wouldn’t be safe to jump. I don’t want broken bones or whatever. But just some years ago I would have jumped if I could, risking injuries. I was there for like 20 minutes before I finally got the door open.

A couple nights ago I went to the Philadelphia Eastern State Penitentiary with my sister and my dad for the Haunted attraction. It’s a real abandoned prison that is in a state of semi-ruin, almost 200 years old. It’s said by ghost investigators to be truly haunted all year. Lol It’s open all year but the rest of the year is just a prison exhibit to learn of its history, which is very interesting.

For the Halloween attraction every October, we get to walk through the dark prison inside and out in the courtyards when it’s at night, in groups. It has lights flashing, people screaming, monsters walking around, “prisoners” trying to attack us through their cells, monsters, all kinds of creepy, scary stuff. There’s lock down, the infirmary, night watch, an abandoned bus in a junkyard and other attractions we walk through. Things randomly and unexpectedly jump out at us, sometimes screaming and with weapons! There’s 3D things and people jumping through walls at us. They come right up to us with weapons holding them over our heads or up to our faces. Lol Isn’t it insane that people actually take pleasure in this? But something about a certain kind of fear is quite thrilling for people. Like amusement park rides and sky diving. And scary movies & books.
Also, I think our brains are not aware of the difference of what is real and what is not. Seeing, hearing horror in movies and things, the human brain cannot distinguish the difference. We know it’s not real but some part of our brain does not know and it has a negative/fearful effect on is, even later. That’s why too much fake horror isn’t good for us. I used to have a psychiatrist who told me that and I noticed it too when I read too many horror books close together. It has an unpleasant effect. He advised me to avoid fake horror all together. It’s not good for anyone and especially those prone to anxiety or depressive conditions.

It’s fun. And scary. I’m not afraid of monsters and ghosts and stuff but it’s kind of startling to have people looking all dead with blood all over them, screaming and with weapons jumping out in the dark at me with just an eerie glow around the prison.

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(inside the prison – imagine walking up this long hallway knowing at any moment something or someone can and probably will jump out at you. Lol creepy!)

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(it was the perfect night for a haunted house – or prison – because there was a full Moon or almost full Moon and I kept seeing it when we walked in and out of the prison into the courtyards)

They’re not allowed to touch us and we are not allowed to touch them. But this year they had something different where the bravest of the brave can wear a bright pink glow necklace they give us and this gives the monsters (the actors working in the prison) permission to touch us, grab us, snatch us, hold us back, separate us so we lose our groups, toss us into secret passageways, and do other terrible stuff. I haven’t been there in a couple years until a couple nights ago. So this was new to me.

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I love haunted houses and stuff but my one fear has always been being separated and ending up in a small, dark place alone. This still scares me. I fear dark places as well but not as much as small or closed in places.

But I decided to be brave that night and wear the necklace. I was abducted, strangled, held back, got my hair pulled, forced by two monster dentists to sit in a dentists chair so they can pull out all my teeth…they put the loud thing all the way to my mouth then I escaped!

I was almost forced into a small cell and into a weird tunnel but I ran screaming. And the monsters laughed at me. Lol

Most people did not take the necklaces and some who did decided to take them off and toss them so the monsters could no longer touch them. Even my dad took his off and hid it.

Chicken shits. Lol ;-D

I was one of the brave few who kept mine on throughout the entire prison, not once taking it off. Yay me! Lol Although at one point the thought occurred to me but I sucked it up and kept going.

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(me with my medal of honor lol)

It took nerve. Especially when most people were not wearing them so there was not many choices for the monsters and so the few of us who were wearing them were the ones who kept getting all the attention. At one point I was the only one wearing a necklace where I was and two monsters came up and said since I was the only one wearing one right there, I was the “chosen one.” I was snatched while everyone around me ran away, even my dad and sister (thanks everyone! Lol) and had my hand held under some device that came down and was supposed to pierce my hand but when it touched me it was just rubber. Lol

I knew I could have been dragged and possibly tossed into a secret, small, dark place alone. But I took the chance. I would have NEVER ever been able to make that choice, probably even a year ago.

The thing that really inspired me to take and wear the necklace is in the beginning a monster said “you came here for fear so get all the fear you can get…” encouraging us to take the glow necklace. This also inspires me in general, to take advantage of every opportunity in life to live to the fullest, whatever “the fullest” is to me at that moment. To soak up all I can, all the thrills, the beauty, and feeling there is to feel.

Being alive is an opportunity to take in everything we can, to feel. To live. To experience. To grow. To love. To make mistakes. To learn. To feel pain and beauty, sorrow and joy. Misery and happiness. To take full advantage of our senses.

I been to this prison for the Halloween attraction a couple occasions years ago. The first day I went for the haunted attraction I was hugging, holding hands with, and clinging to people I did not know. Lol It was my first year in college, I was eighteen years old, and I went as a group with other college students, all girls and one boy. The boy wanted us to go first because he said he was the only boy. But we told him no, since he’s the boy he had to be in the front.
Lol we were holding onto each other like our lives depended on it.

It’s one of my favorite memories. And after the event was over and we were walking up the dark street outside the prison, a drunk person jumped out at us and we all screamed. He wasn’t trying to scare us and just looked at us like we were all nuts.

Now, being buried alive would be way, way more terrifying than going on an elevator for less than a minute! And being locked in a room.
And way more horrifying than a fun tour through a haunted prison for Halloween.

But I know now that I would survive emotionally as long as I survived physically. I would go into a deep meditation and have my Buddhist and stoic principles and my life philosophy and inner Truth, my authentic Self to help guide me til I become physically free. I would still be frightened and panicked at some points. And maybe feel as if I can’t go on but I know I can. I have my life philosophy that I work on every single day without fail. I can survive anything as long as I stay alive. As long as I’m free in my mind, I am free. Truly free. You can be free too if you’re not already, with lots of hard work and practice. We don’t have to allow anything or anyone to restrain us.

If you work to heal one aspect of yourself you can be strengthening yourself in deep ways you don’t even realize in other aspects as well.

I want this for everyone. Whatever pain, physical or emotional, whatever fear or problems, I want us all to find a way to conquer it. A way to cope.

I never ever thought my fear of being closed in could be vanquished but it is. It’s also not completely cured. My heart still races in small or narrow places, sometimes I still think there’s no way I can be closed in alone and survive with my sanity intact, I still avoid closed in spaces for the most part, but I conquered it and can handle it now. ME! I can’t even believe it!

If you are ever in a situation you are 100% convinced without a doubt you can’t or won’t survive, remember, it feels that way, it’s not true. I never knew I can ever survive the depression and tmjd cluster-like headaches but somehow I did. I survive each one. My conviction was deep, that I couldn’t survive but I do survive and now my conviction is even deeper that I can and will survive whatever comes my way.

And you can too, whatever it is. It can get better. <333 ❤ Much love, hope, & strength to you.

Xoxo Kim

Living for the simple moments {beauty all around}

Sep17

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“Underneath your blackest emotions,
far above your brightest wishes,
stands a world for you to hold” ~Samael

I was watching videos about children who suffer with severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia. It’s currently incurable and is a lifelong struggle for them. They suffer immensely and so do their families and those close to them who do the best they can to cope and help them cope.
They suffer hallucinations and delusions, some pleasant and some not pleasant.
They talk to things no one else can see.
Unlike some children, these aren’t imaginary friends playfully made up for fun, they are hallucinations the brain makes up as a result of an imbalance in its chemistry. It doesn’t function the way most people’s brains function. They literally see, hear, feel things that aren’t there for everyone else and often, they believe they’re real. And to them they are very real.

You can tell a hallucinating person that what that person is seeing, hearing, or feeling isn’t really there and it’s possible the person will know it’s not really there but that knowledge will not make the hallucinations any less real.

That can be an additional stress on someone. Knowing what the person is seeing, hearing, feeling isn’t really there but not being able to make it go away, even feeling the need to respond to certain hallucinations knowing they’re not really there. It can be so frustrating.

Sometimes their mental illnesses provoke some of them to act violently against other people not because they’re bad people but because their brains don’t function properly. Not everyone with a mental illness is violent as a result but some can be. Most aren’t.
In other ways they can be just like other little kids. They like to play, go outside, run around, swing, laugh….

People with mental illnesses, children and adults alike, are a whole person underneath, a person separate than the illness. But sometimes the sickness seems to take over.

It’s a heartbreaking struggle.

One of the most inspiring parts of one of the videos I watched is when a little girl’s dad said he has only two hopes for his little girl. One that she stays alive and two that moments of happiness will always find her throughout her days even when most parts of her days are an agonizing battle, he hopes she will always find something to be happy about in the midst of her pain and struggle.

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This can be viewed in a more negative light like that it’s too bad that all someone has is little moments throughout the day because everything else is just so bad.
Or it can be viewed in a positive light that there are always moments we can embrace to be inspired and joyful, single moments scattered throughout each day that we have, to seize and hold on for. No matter how much pain we’re in.

It’s a beautiful coping mechanism. Mental illness and physical illness is heartbreaking and devastating but as long as we stay alive and hold onto any little bit of happiness or joy or anything that can make us smile or giggle about, we can make it.

We can’t always hope to be cured or to be generally recovered or to go in remission right now. We can’t always hope that pain will end right now. Some things just won’t be cured and some people will have to struggle most days or everyday just to survive and do basic things. Some people will have severe flare ups every now and again, of an illness physical or emotional that will feel near impossible to cope with.
And even temporary pain or struggles that we know will end eventually, can just seem so overwhelming, so absolutely unbearable.

But as long as we live and can find those glimpses of magic hidden in the midst of the pain and darkness, we can have something to hold, something to hope for, something that encourages us to keep going, to get out of bed, to move.

The reflection of the sun on windows and signs and water, the blueness of the sky, white fluffy clouds, a steaming cup of hot tea, a funny movie, the depth of inspiration a beautiful song can bring us, a poem, friends, family, animals, photography, books, the vibrant colors all around, random acts of kindness, strangers, hot fudge sundaes, peanut butter, the gentle flapping of butterfly wings, helping someone, funny jokes….whatever touches you in a deep place.

These things, the simple beauty all around, are always beautiful no matter what our situation is but for some people with certain illnesses or disabilities or in certain situations, they are all we have at the moment. Just moments of simple beauty and joys. Sometimes it’s really all we can hope for, to have solitary moments of joy or happiness or some small sense of pleasure in the midst of our darkness.

And it can be enough.

I know this because when my depression would be flaring up for hours, days, weeks, months, whether it’s a full blown episode or just some symptoms, here and there, sometimes all I could do to stay alive, to find the motivation, the inspiration, the courage, and strength to carry on, was grasp onto all the single happy or joyous moments throughout every day of my darkness & despair. Focus on the goodness that still does exist until it would end and I would be happy again. I had this since 13 years old.

Having depression or any mental illness or pain can feel like a different world than where everyone else is. It’s like another place, another time, another world. To know we have this dark place we can slip into.
To have random suicidal thoughts and urges and depression that can appear suddenly for seemingly no reason.

People say there’s no such thing as “normal.”
And that it’s good to be different and “crazy” and unique.
But in some cases there really is such a thing as “normal.” People who always want to live, those who don’t have to battle random or frequent suicidal urges, ones who don’t have unpleasant images and thoughts flashing across their brains, people who don’t have their whole body crushed in an invisible heaviness where they can’t even stand up straight, ones without panic attacks and flashbacks and frequent anxiety, food obsessions, seriously disordered eating habits ….(i don’t have anxiety or panic attacks or body image issues/eating disorders and never have but many, many people do and it’s a serious problem that is very painful for them)
This is normal to not have all this.
And for people who have any of it, it can be a difficult struggle to try to be regular.
I know people without health conditions like this may not be “normal” in other ways but in this context they are.
And it’s not good to try to force ourselves to be society’s or someone else’s idea of normal while not being true to ourselves.
But that’s not what I’m talking about here.
Yes it’s good to be “unique” but not when unique means battling violent urges to take myself out for days/weeks/months.
And “crazy” is good when it’s all fun and games and playing, acting funny and silly but it’s not good when “crazy” is a true illness.
It’s not always easy to handle and it provokes pain in me, even when I’m not depressed sometimes. Just thinking about it.
Not always. For the most part I feel and am normal. But it can be a struggle sometimes when depression flares up.

The psychological consequences of having these condition, and for some, even when they are not currently acting up, are profound and may have to find ways to cope with the pain and struggles and the very fact of having them when they are someone with a mental disorder. I don’t mind and can handle it.

I know I’m not a victim. That’s why I’m posting this, because I have found a way to be empowered and I hope it helps someone else. This life is still a sweet blessing. Just because we have bad things and painful things happen to us, doesn’t mean we are victims.

“We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.” ~Jawaharlal Nehru

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I’m alive. And as long as that remains true, there is hope. Even when I can’t feel it.

Sometimes the simple things are lifesavers, crucial parts of my coping mechanisms.
They are all there is.

I honor all the brave families and other people for sharing their stories, for sharing their pain and struggles with the world. Mental illness, medication, mental illness in children, specific ways of coping, treatment…are all very controversial. People disagree on the nature of some illnesses, whether or not they really exist, if certain treatments are ethical, the way people handle these illnesses and so much more. Anyone who shares a story like this that reaches a large audience, on blogs, YouTube, tv…, is bound to receive criticism of all kinds, some intended to be constructive, other critics intending to be malicious and inflict pain or anger upon those sharing their story.
There will always be loving supporters and those who just want to hurt.
Anyone who shares their story is brave and strong and deserves love and compassion whether or not we agree with everything they do or say or believe.
The people who share their pain with the world do the best they can the best they know how.
No one chooses to be mentally ill. We have to take the life we were gifted with, healthy or not, and do the best we can with it, bloom where we’re planted, create a firm, strong foundation with everything we know, everything we experience, everything that is thrown at us.

“Today a new sun rises for me; everything lives, everything is animated, everything seems to speak to me of my passion, everything invites me to cherish it.” ~Anne De Lenclos

Mental illness, pain, being suicidal…none of these are choices but acting on them is often a choice. Acting negatively or acting positively. Giving in and giving up or finding it in us to keep going with everything we have. We have the choice to do something to better ourselves, to hold on, to inspire, bring hope, consolation, encouragement, and understanding to others.

When I am depressed, I choose to hold on, to keep going, to inspire myself and anyone else I can along the way.

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And I hope you will always do the same whatever your situation is. And if you need reminders every now and again, look for them. Take photos of happy things, write positive quotes and affirmations in a book so you can always look at them when you need inspiration, always remember words, books, things that have helped you and let them continue to help you. Remember an occasion when you were happy and filled with joy and hope and full of life and know you have it in you to feel that way again. If you can’t remember when you last felt that way, then know there’s always hope as long as you’re alive. The world is full of pain but it’s also full of hope, healing, happiness, love, and possibility. Endless possibilities.

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“I choose to FIGHT BACK! I choose to RISE, not fall! I choose to LIVE, not die! And I know, I know that what’s within me is also WITHIN YOU.” (Mayor Pappas, “City Hall” movie quote)

Xoxo Kim

Love’s Power <3

Aug31

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“I have wept in the night for the shortness of sight
That to someone’s need made me blind;
But I never have yet felt a tinge of regret 
For being a little too kind.” ~ Unknown 

I work at a store. It’s window service and we sell ice cream and water ice all year long. We make ice cream sundaes, banana splits, gelatis, and sell soda, candy, and some other things.

I get tips a lot. When someone gives me a tip it’s often one or two dollars or some change. On seldom occasions someone gives me a big tip. The biggest tip given to me at once 
was around eighteen dollars. That is very rare. I’m always very grateful for tips no matter how much or how little the money is, and the person who gives me one, more for the kindness than the money itself. People don’t have to give me a tip but many do, out of the kindness and goodness of their hearts.

One of the most inspiring tips I ever received is 25 cents. 

One busy night at work I saw an old man in line. I love old people. I think they’re cute and am deeply inspired by their deep wrinkles, graying or white hair, their slow movements, laugh lines, their aches and pains, the gnarled joints that reveal strength, endurance, and determination, passion, longing, and vitality entrapped in deteriorating eyes and ears but set free through the power of Touch, their wisdom, that all reveal an undying desire and will to live and survive, to keep going, to push through it all with that sparkle still in their eyes, the smile that never fades, the long life of happiness, heartache, joy, and battles and beauty they have been blessed to know.

The man was looking to his side, smiling warmly. I felt an instant warm affection for him. I saw deep wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, white hair on his balding head. His arthritic fingers had difficulty moving, grasping and his posture wasn’t straight. But he still has something to smile about.

Then I saw what he was smiling at. His grandson. An adorable little boy.

The little boy also had a radiant smile. A joyous smile that seemed to light the night.

He was so eager to order his own food. Usually when kids come with adults the adult orders the food for them. But occasionally a child wants to ask for her/his own.

This little boy, probably around ten years old, was so happy to ask for his own food. A “special needs” child, it was somewhat challenging for him but he attempted, succeeded, and was so proud. He asked for food that costs $2.50. 

I spoke to and smiled at him encouragingly to show him how well he was doing. And his grandfather stood back and watched proudly.

The little boy handed me three dollars and I gave him his fifty cents back. He stepped aside to put mustard on his food and let the others in line come up to order. When I went back to the window the little boy said to me, “Excuse me, do you have a tip cup?” 

I gladly accept tips but I don’t ask for or expect them and never put a tip cup out. One of the girls I work with does though and her tip cup was on the shelf next to the window since it was just me working that night, so I put it out the window when he asked and he took one of his quarters he got as change, smiled at me, and dropped it in. Again, he was so happy and proud. What a kind and thoughtful 
little boy. Full of courage and love.
Glowing with confidence.

My heart welled up with love and gratitude and inspiration.

I said “Thank You so much!!” and smiled and he smiled that unstoppable smile and joyfully replied “You’re welcome!” and they walked away hand in hand. A little boy and an old man.

This little boy doesn’t let a disability stop him or a struggle or a challenging circumstance. He bravely speaks up, exercises his independence, and reaches out in love.

The quarter he gave me is a beautiful, tangible reminder of love, strength, and courage.

I love to help people. It’s one of my favorite things. I’m a very shy girl, sometimes a little bit too reserved, and sometimes I let it limit me. 
And sometimes I let my depressive disorder limit me.
Sometimes when I’m deeply depressed I let myself sink and not be the best me I can be. I submerge into a deep abyss and stop everything. Stop writing and reading and sharing uplifting quotes and ideas, stop smiling, repressing all of my creative urges…
And there have been occasions I was in a position to reach out and help someone or speak up or even just make eye contact with and smile at a stranger or someone, to give all of myself, to express my love and compassion and instead, I held back, stood back or looked away in fear. 

Fear of what I would look like to others, fear of not being good enough, fear of trying to help but actually making something worse, fear of making a misjudgment and someone really did not need my help or want my kindness, fear of messing up in front of someone and looking silly not in a good way, fear of someone negatively judging me for some reason, fear of coming off as useless or rambling, fear of being misunderstood, fear of someone seeing me truly, seeing me for me and not liking it, the real me, fear of someone not “properly” receiving whatever I wanted to offer, fear. 

Fear.

I let it interfere with my loving compassion, the tenderness that my heart longs to lavish on the world, I let it interfere with my desire, my longing to reach out and embrace, console, heal, and love.  

I don’t always let it stop me. But too often, I do. 

And a little boy reminded me of that one summer night when he reached out through the loving kindness in his heart and showed me love even though it was a challenge for him.

He was bold enough to ask for what he wanted. And brave enough to love.

And through his own love, kindness, and courage, he was able to encourage and teach/remind me of a lesson. Love is more powerful than fear. More powerful than pain of any kind.
It’s more powerful than any struggle or challenge or disability. It’s more powerful than pain and despair, depression and the desire to give up. If we summon the love in us, it’s more powerful than anything else.

“Livin’ might mean takin’ chances but they’re worth takin'” ~ LeeAnn Womack

The only true disability is the choice to let fear or other unpleasant emotions stand in the way of love. And that disability can be corrected.

My love, my kindness, my willingness to help will not always be gratefully appreciated. I will experience forms of rejection, ridicule, apathy, people who see me for me and don’t like what they see. I will be misjudged now and again. I will be disliked, not appreciated, ignored. And that’s ok. I don’t love merely to be loved in return, to be appreciated and cherished. Those are amazing things to have but I don’t expect or demand them in return for my love, compassion, and kindness.

If someone does not receive my kindness and love the way I intend, it’s ok. It can be painful but it’s worth the risk. I will move forward and love some more. There will always be someone who does not care for my help, love, friendship, and kindness and there will always be someone who does. I won’t always know for sure who will open up and receive my love and compassion and who will not.

“Lovin’ might be a mistake but it’s worth makin'” ~ LeeAnn Womack 

But I won’t stand back in fear of those who won’t. I will love again and again. And if it touches someone for the better, my dream is fulfilled. If it’s denied, ignored, ridiculed, criticized, and rejected, I will go on loving. My dream is still fulfilled. My dream to BE a being of love. To be an example of love. Love for others and the self. Love for people I don’t know personally and for people I do. Love for the most loving and beautiful people. Love for difficult people and ones who just don’t care. Love for those who aren’t easy to love.

“I’ve got a song
And I carry it with me and I sing it loud
If it gets me nowhere, I’ll go there proud.” ~ Jim Croce 

Love can be an emotion, an affective feeling and it can be a verb, an action, an expression. Whenever we reach out to make the world a better place or touch someone’s life for the better with the light of our own lives, we reach out in love. 

I hope you, too, will reach out in Love if it’s your true passion. If Love is your Way I hope you honor it and love. Love any way you can. Writing positive and uplifting comments to people on blogs, statuses, videos, encouraging your friends and family unconditionally, volunteering to help people or animals, being a loving mother or father or friend, working to help people, giving to those in need, smiling sweetly at people, helping homeless animals or people, sharing uplifting quotes, a warm hug or friendly hello, providing warmth and light to those in the cold darkness…you don’t need money or a specific job or even a lot of time. You can incorporate love into your every day. The most simple acts of kindness are enough to light up the world.
Even when you struggle to move your tongue, I hope you speak in Love.  And when your hands tremble in fear, I hope you still reach out to touch. When your heart is broken and scarred I hope it continues to guide you, anyway. And when you’re lonely and your arms are holding yourself tightly in your sorrow and despair, I hope you find the strength to let go and embrace another, someone else who may need your loving arms, your broken heart, your deep understanding. When your eyes are filled with tears and pain, I hope you find the courage still, to look deeply into someone else’s and find something that resonates with you, look into someone else’s eyes and see a reflection of yourself.

“At the end of the day, it’s not about what you have or even what you’ve accomplished. It’s about what you’ve done with those accomplishments. It’s
about who you’ve lifted up, who you’ve made better. It’s about what you’ve given back.”

I am forever grateful to all of those who remind me. Remind me to love, to take risks, to honor me, even though it won’t always be easy.

“Everyone needs reminders that the fact of their being on this earth is important and that each life changes everything.”
~Marge Kennedy

I heard and read the word “encourage” my whole life and knew what it means for about as long as I can remember. It means to bring some kind of support to someone, to help give someone a push to keep going. But until now I never realized the word “courage” in it and the “en” in front of the “courage.” To inspire courage. Like the word “enable.” able=ability “en” to empower or allow. To help someone find the courage that dwells deep within.

It’s an interesting revelation.

We have courage or potential for courage deep within us already and someone can help coax it out for us, even a young child.

We often think about what we can teach and remind children but let us stop for a minute and think what a child can remind and teach us.

Xoxo Kim

Follow Your Own Way

Apr30

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I recently read a very old and very short fictional story called “Young Goodman Brown” about a young man who initially has faith in the basic, universal goodness of humanity.   But things occur in the story to shake his faith. It falters then collapses and he’s convinced there isn’t much goodness in humans. 

This story, if I understand correctly, is inspired by the author’s real life situations.

I have been analyzing it and reading an analysis of it. It reminds me of a few quotes that are somewhere along the lines of “Be kind to people in general, even unkind ones, not because they’re kind but because you are.”

This quote implies kindness as a way of life and not a mere occasional act or feeling in response to environmental situations. Even when people are not kind, YOU still are. You can let your kind Way and your kind philosophy waver and lash out in unkindness or you can keep it firm and grounded and stay true to yourself even in the face of other people’s bitterness.

If you are a kind person, it’s easy to be loving, kind, compassionate…when it’s convenient, when you’re currently surrounded by goodness, beauty, sweetness, kindness, love. 

But what about when you are currently surrounded by someone else’s bitterness, what about when you encounter a rude person or a very unpleasant situation?   It can be so tempting to let our own kind, loving, compassionate, optimistic ways crumble.  And that doesn’t make someone a bad person.  Most of us probably have relapses and setbacks and it is natural to be defensive in situations where you feel threatened in some way.  But even in the midst of stress, chaos, rude people, negativity, pain, you’re still that kind, loving, caring you that you generally are. You’re still the you who believes in goodness, kindness, and love. Don’t forget you. Be true to and honor the you that you are.

You can build yourself so strong nothing will break what you are, nothing will bring your life philosophy, your morals and virtues, your principles, your deep wisdom to destruction. This isn’t to say we should be closed minded and restrained by our views that nothing and no one can enlighten us, educate us, or persuade us to a different view if we find evidence that that view may be true or better for us.   It’s to say that we don’t have to lose faith that people are basically good just because of an encounter with a few bad ones, we don’t have to resort to unkindness and bitterness because others are, we don’t have to stop loving because we find someone doesn’t love us in return, we don’t have to wish bad things for people because they wish bad things for us, we don’t have to let pain, horror, negativity, fear, depression, fury…bring our deep wisdom to ruin. We don’t have to let painful thoughts, feelings, and emotions convince us that life is bad.

We can have a firm sense of who we are and honor that someone, always. We can change, grow, expand, evolve in various ways but stay true to who we are.

This story and thoughts and concept helps me so much when I’m depressed or becoming depressed/suicidal.

I haven’t been real depressed for a while but a few nights ago I felt myself kind of slipping. I was in a depressed mood, not yet a full blown depressive episode but a very low, depressed mood and couldn’t sleep right. Through the years of my depressive illness I learned how to often, though not always, prevent a full blown episode when I feel it about to hit. And when I’m not successful in preventing it, I’m often better now, at coping with and “breezing right through it” than I could years ago.  So I was trying so hard not to let it get me.

I can often tell when I’m about to become suicidal or when suicidal thinking is about to occur.   A few nights ago, I was having suicidal thoughts that felt as if they were just getting stronger and stronger, not urges, not contemplation but if it got out of hand, it could have been headed that way.  There was no event that was currently happening to me to trigger this. I was on the verge of faltering.  Serious suicidal contemplation hasn’t happened for me in well over a year now. And I did not then and do not now want a relapse after all my hard work to prevent that sort of thinking/urges. But it takes a lot of energy to ward off those thoughts, feelings, emotions when I feel them swirling around in my head. A lot of energy and strength. I was angry, depressed and wanted to let myself sink and slip into that dark place I once lived, so long.

But I thought of my Way. My own Way. My own life philosophy that life is beautiful and hope can be restored.   There’s so much to live for. Even through the pain, life is a blessing. Gratitude saves my life sometimes. When I’m so drained and ready to cave, I think of all I have. All that I am.  It took a lot of practice to get my life philosophy so ingrained into me that it helps me fend off suicidal/depressive attacks. But I have accomplished so much with it.

It takes practice and work to build yourself so strong that even in the face of misery and seemingly unbearable pain and even being dragged into other people’s negativity,you remain true to yourself. Your deep, authentic self who knows true wisdom and your own Truth.

I hope you will choose to honor you, your true deep self, when you feel yourself slipping in any way, about to cave and give into negative actions. This isn’t only for depressed people who have what I have but even people without depression. Almost everyone has some kind of struggles or pain and can use some loving inspiration now and again.

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“Love is always bestowed as a gift – freely, willingly and without expectation. We don’t love to be loved;we love to love.” ~ Leo Buscaglia 

Xoxo Kim 😀