Happiness Project

Sick sick sick of complaining. I am sorry. Sorry if you've been reading my latest posts. But mostly I'm sorry to myself. For allowing myself to give into sadness and hopelessness. It always the convenient emotion but I am physically going to force myself to start seeing the world through those rose coloured glasses, and start gathering those flowers like I mean it.

These past few days I went through a whirlwind of outward circumstances coming straight at me again. I had 3 boys in my life. One who wanted me for my body, one who wanted my mind, and one who is always after my soul. Yet I had never felt more empty and alone. Like this grabbing and appreciation was just for them, and really had nothing to do with me, just their need for taking was the importance. I find that alot with men...that they are naturally takers and women are naturally givers. Not in a judgemental way or to say they all are, just has been my experience and observation anyways.

After breaking up with the first, fighting with the second, and ignoring the third I went through a few days of withdrawal. The basic, alot of movies, crying, brownies and feelings of severe desolation. You know all the regular breakup withdrawal symptoms, not just from attention (which I have to admit was nice since i'm definitely not the alluring marilyn monroe type :P) but more from the feeling that yet again I had given my power away to others. And not only that but those who were underserving of it. I let myself get tied up in their expectations, and all the while completely lost my centre and my own core.

So I've decided to create a new goal: damn straight hardcore all the way happiness project! Yes and not it a selfish way, but self loving way. I've don't suffer from arrogance I suffer from self- flagellation of a terrible mental variety. So the only way I can think of truly getting me back, it starting to love and do the things I love. I will practice positive mantras every day. I will treat myself to sauna time. I will practice a dance routine and finish it. I will start writing everyday and not just "pretend" to. I will start making time to create healthy meals that I can eat and satisfy my bored tastebuds. I will make desserts that I can still feel good after. I will start taking pictures with my camera like I'm excited again, even by rocks and leaves. I will reconnect and start up good friendships which I've let gather dust. I will read instead of watch. I will listen instead of hide. I will gather my temper or let it out in a constructive way. I will try to be more open with my family. I will try to trust men and not feel like I want to punch them all :P Mostly I will love who I am and not feel embarrassed, shameful, or disappointed in who and where I am at this point in my life. I will. I will. I will. Will to will. Okay now I'm just annoying hahah. Nope wait i mean now I'm just persistent :)

Just Feel Okay

I don't know how to write anymore. And that scares me. I want to communicate, to break, to fill, and spill out all these things that come with life.

I wish I new how to properly describe the fear and excitement and frustrated fury I feel everyday.

I wish I knew how to stretch hours into days to fulfill the amount of passions and desires and things I want to try out.

I wish I knew how to feel good about myself without letting another pretty girl make me feel worthless.

I wish I knew how to describe how this ache of beautiful sadness I feel whenever I hear a good song, or fully dance around a room, or meet a new amazing friend, or when I feel like I accomplished something other than another responsibility.

I wish I knew how describe how my mind works like a camera frame daily, trying to make my life into a moving movie, with scenes and the best angles, and capturing the best snippets of funny dialogue, or the best soundtrack for each moment.

I wish I knew the difference between feel hopeless and hopeful. Or at least maybe the secret to figuring out the easy way.

Crying and random dance fits have become a necessity and yet a burden on my everyday life, something I literally have to do at least once a day or my emotions will literally rip in and out of me and leave me for dead.

I want passion, and fire, and health, and security. I want days with feeling okay, with feeling ready, ready for it all.

I want things that boost and become part of me. I want to be full and overflowing with purpose, saturated so deep in satisfaction each day that it pours out of me. Like a cup of nectar I want to be and see only sweetness. I want to be golden and bright and have that spark. I don't know where I am right now but I just want to get past the uncertainty and just feel okay. Just feel okay.

Change in Environment, Changed my Attitude

"Kiss him, kiss him, KISS HIM!!!"my mind chanted over and over as he walked me home.

Ever since I've been back from the ashram in California I don't feel like myself. And not it a liberating way. I feel lost and whats worse, I feel lost after I felt found. I think because I am no longer protected in a safe environment and around people who I love, and fortunately loved me back. At Ananda I was like a baby wrapped in blanket; I had play time, and a little active work time, nap time, yoga time, meditation time, and delicious home cooked meals served to me literally on a platter. I had breaks away from myself. Or at least from the nagging self "ego" which just cannot stand me and makes a point of telling me so. I had a worry fast in other words. And I was is love. God was I ever in love. And more than just with my partner, I was in love with my friends who were my ACTUAL friends. I was in love with nature and the gifts of her simple beauty, with the quietness in my mind I could finally experience like soak in a hot bath, with laughter which I rediscovered, and I was in love with life.

Now back home I feel like I was brutally stripped and woken out of bed, out of the comfort of my safety blanket. Back to coldness of reality. Back to money, and duties, and acquaintances who pretend to be friends for a beer night, and back to never having enough time to play after work. I'm still figuring it all out. But the truth is, I think I just miss believing in something greater than sadness, or pain. In that ashram hidden away in nature, for a time I think I really touched God, or at least my version of her. I felt hopeful, or like I wasn't alone for once in my lonely ridden life.

Being back I can't help but worry with my change in environment, I changed my attitude. I've sadly went back to thinking I could adapt back to my old self, the one who is happy with the mediocre barren lifestyle of a spiritless society. I cannot conform, I tried but it's killing me. It's the not being me which is killing me. Turning back on my spiritual path is being untruthful to myself. It is a tortuous game which I  can't play anymore.

Tonight I decided enough is enough. I called up an old friend who I really connected with in a way beyond "Facebook approved". We had a good time, going to the pool and acting like kids swimming and splashing and swinging off rope swings. After we went for some hot Pho and just talked. Like long past our meals being taken away, and past the check being paid for. Just because this is what connection is: the need and enjoyment of a persons company, WITHOUT needing anything else. In the technology age conversation has been replaced with banter over some form of texting. But there we were, the loud couple talking and laughing and goofing off, the couple who doesn't give a rats ass if they are retardedly making inappropriate jokes, and trying to aim candy in each others mouths over the table, or passionately debating over which indie bands are better than the others.

I didn't feel alone. And it was divine. But like all cute boys I connect with, I can't help it...I like them. Like in the way where I was subtly was checking out his tight toned body beneath his white t-shirt. The way I was finding excuses to touch and playfully push him after jokes. The way I was feeling like I really wanted him to kiss me. But truthfully after my break up from J, from the person I thought I was going to marry, I feel like all I really want is just someone to hopefully rub out my memories of him with someone else's lips. Not only that but almost prove that I can be that stupid superficial version of me, that I don't have to go down the spiritual path which lets face it, is much more harder and takes making alot more tough conscious decisions.

So as he slowly walked me back my mind was like a loop tape, chanting, "Kiss him, kiss him, KISS HIM!" But just as I reached the house and saw his bus coming around the corner, I just couldn't. Even though it would have been satisfying now, later on it would just be another reckless thing I did for temporary gratification. God though, hugging him goodbye I can't help but feel empty. Once I heard that the spiritual path is like a contract, once you are on it, there is no going back. But man, the spiritual path is a lonely one. Please divine ma, come back and fill this empty cup of loneliness. Fill me up. Fill me up.

Holding out for Happiness

"If you think of life as precious, and as death simply as an inevitable ending, it becomes a drive. A way to keep you focused. Put it this way, if you take a day, or even today, and you think 'if this was my last day on earth, would I be satisfied, would I be happy with my life?' In that sense you see what you are missing, or what you need and would want to do to feel satisfaction. And the key is, if you have too many days where the answer is "no" to that question, then that is a big signal for change."

I keep bumping into people, the guy at my career search seminar, an old man at the beach who just asked what yoga technique I was doing at the beach, a girlfriend I met in line, all these people who keep reminding me to have hope. To continue to search and strive, and live! Goddamnit I keep thinking I was alone or forsaken, but the more I clear my head I realize how much the universe is trying to speak to me. Stay open she says, stay faithful. I am trying. Some days not so much. Other days better. But I swear I want to come out on the other side, divine ma. I whine and I complain (because in truth sometimes it just hurts so much I don't think I can bear it). But I do. I have wanted to give up on myself so many times. But there is just this damn wiggle, this damn little spark that refuses to leave my body, my heart. It is the reason I keep living. Because I hope one day I will have the strength and fuel to ignite that spark into a raging unstoppable fire. I know I have it in me because it is the reason I continue to dream. To read. To listen to sad music and wonder if I can contain the beauty of released sadness. It is all contained within me, within this little giant.

I pray divine mother hears me, and will continue to send me these people, those words, those signs, those gifts of holding out for happiness.

Good night world. I love you.

Practice Practice Practice

"Change starts first with a conscious decision, a conscious choice. To play a different track in your mind. Because as soon as you fall into that old pattern, that old groove, you're stuck. But if you catch yourself before you fall into that mood, or that place where its overwhelming, your whole world, then that's the beginning of your recovery. The further and further I go into my life, I'm realizing that life is about fleeting passings of happiness and misery. And they both change, they both are fleeting. So when you are in that space of sadness and you feel like giving up, just remember everything passes. You'll come out of it. I mean even when I'm so happy I remind myself its temporary. Not in the way that I'm not grateful or in the moment, in fact because I know that this huge happiness is fleeting, it's a way of reminding myself to enjoy it. To really feel it and appreciate it as it will be back to misery again. You just can't see life so seriously. There are so many things we have no control of. So many things we can't explain. I mean really when it comes down to it all we really have control of is our reactions (she laughs) and everything else is out of our hands. What I'm trying to say is you have to let go of worry because that's the real symptom of your chronic physical sickness. Just take it day by day. And practice, practice, practice reminding yourself to remain positive. I mean I've got 20 years on you and I'm just learning how to let go of things. So you are so intelligent and wise to start now."

This is what my healer said to me. And in this way she gave the best healing of all the bloody doctors and western medicine combined. She made me feel like I can actually do this, like I can actually come out of this alive. Thank you for speaking to me through her. I know you trying to show me things I cannot see yet. But I'm listening. And I'm making baby steps. So please don't give up on me.

This is Just a Play

It's hard to describe how much I feel at the same time. I feel nothing and I feel the impact of the whole world at the same time. I feel intense happiness for God and intense sadness for being on this planet.

I kind of had a big breakthrough the other night. It's no secret that I've thought about death alot. And on bad days even prayed for it. But even though I thought it's what I wanted, in the back of mind my mind I was still afraid and still thought of it as a horrible thing. And then the other night, after once again losing myself to worry and fear and anxiety about the unknown future, I thought, why am I doing this? Why do I have this imposed self pressure to be someone? To be accomplished? To be the big important  impressive person? Don't we all have to give it up at death? What is money and accomplishments when you die along with every other person eventually. I know it sounds morbid but knowing we all die and move on to something better than this world, made me realize how pointless it is to worry. So damn pointless. Accepting death actually became a comfort.

 I finally understood what all those poets and artists spoke about how this whole life "is just a play" or "stage" in which we just are actors trying lines out. Because at the end what does it matter whether you were the hero or just the extra, the play still ends. So why not just enjoy it? Why not just be unafraid of being exactly who you are and who you want to "play" in this round? I may not be the hero or protagonist of which I always coveted, but in truth did I want that? Was I always seeking this glory because I wanted it or because so many of the people I knew expected it of me to go after those big roles?

All I want I realize and all I should ever want is to live up to who I am and what I want to be in this, this my life. No one else's. I am 21 now. Legally and emotionally I am really responsible for myself. God I hope I can live up to it. Tina you NEED to live up to it. Quitting is not you. Quitting will not liberate you. You must liberate yourself.

Try Too

Being around family is one of the worst and best things for yourself. In one sense, for me anyways, it feels like a comfort, a stability I've been missing for too long in this scary all over the place life. Then again seeing my family is like coming face to face with all the toxic and sad familiar habits and perceptions of yourself that they have been projecting onto you growing up.

I don't know about others, but I often feel somewhat like I need to perform, or even act a certain way in front of them. That they have me in this box, or persona, of which I have to play along because they won't allow me to be who are really am, or at least who I want to be.

I am visting my family right now and already...I don't know, I feel comfortable and familiar with them, but I also feel displaced and lost in myself again.

See in my family I'm the baby, and oddly enough that didn't mean I got favoured or the attention. In fact it turned out the opposite, the eldest were the more prized. I don't even say it in a self pitying way. It's just kind of a fact. Even just subtle things are obvious. My father when we are around each other talks little and sits tilted away from me. But when my older sister walks in the room he lights up, even drags his seat closer and will openly try and hug her.

There is so much bitterness in me for this. My whole life I just wanted my parents to see me, to love me, to be proud of me. But it never really happened. And I really think that is the part that has made me so weak. It's kind of funny actually. It became a vicious circle. Because I was so ignored I became so feeble and weak, and because I appeared so weak and dependant, they distanced themselves and were more and more inclined to ignore me.

I do not know sometimes how people build themselves up from rocky childhood's, because in a sense I never really had one, and in another sense I really feel like I never grew up.

I am so scared ma, divine ma, I do not know if I have enough strength in me to keep fighting for inner redemption, inner freedom, inner love.

The part that scares me the most is I've never felt more lonely in my life. Or maybe a better word is more responsible in my life. Responsible in the sense that if I want to continue living I might have to just do something drastic. Like leave completely my whole life, my family, my comfort zone and start over somewhere else. With no help. No back up daddy or no bailout cash from grandparents.

I just want to call out to all those who had to or have to start from nothing, from no wholesome family, from no stable foundation, from no place of recognition, and who manage to pull themselves up and out , I fucking salute you. I'm fucking am so proud of you. And I fucking love you for giving me hope to try too.