Built Environment

Endlessly looking at the lines in my hands. Working to conjure an answer. You aren't born knowing what to do when you are not okay. Where do you go when you need space to scream to? How do you problem solve when the problem is your mind and it is telling you that your efforts are wasted? Prayer only works if there is reception and you are in airplane mode. Stuck inside a disconnect of your design and unable to opt out. 

And the worst part is that it is not all bad here. It is familiar. The closest thing to home when home is filled to the ceiling with expectations and there is not room for you. There are no expectations for you because you are not needed or wanted or even acknowledged. So, you stay in the room you built yourself. Surrounded by walls so large you feel as if they are falling in on you and you are falling into them at the same time. Implosions have opened caverns in the floor and you have to watch your step in case it all falls in. And you know that there is a ceiling. You know it is there, but it is so high up that you cannot see where its edges hold everything together and even looking for it makes you feel as if you have fallen into a dry well. 

I've never had an answer. 

Weather the Weather

weather

[weth-er]

to bear up against and come safely through (a storm, danger, trouble,etc.)

Slowly reciting incantations in our childhood home. Wishes and dreams and spells and hexes. Creating a blockade again the storm inside. Boarding up the windows to reduce the breakage. Covering mirrors with sheets because the reflection is dangerous. Hiding underground is safe. Throwing open the doors and howling with the wind is deadly. Sickly, green sunlight only means more danger. Closing your eyes only means more conjecture. Craving the feel of raindrops on skin- Yet, exposure to the elements requires the ultimate offering. Sub-Consciousness and Reality hold each other tightly as the storm subsides. Never quite knowing which one will let go first. Scared of what may be lost or what may be forgotten. The wreckage is a necessary path to beginning again. Sorting through what you will have to live without and accepting what has been left until next time. 

Emotional

Yoga Sutra 2.10: The subtle states of the afflictions (Desire, Aversion & Fear) are destroyed with the dissolution of the mind. 

I would not say that I am the type to wear my emotions on my sleeve, but I definitely attract and cling to many emotions. I am an emotional lint-roller, perhaps. 

Emotions consume. They have needs and wants and they take what they require out of you an even a bit more to sustain themselves. When you place good feelings toward something, you want more and more of it. You grow in your desires and form a sense of greed. When you associate something with bad emotions, you shy away from it. It gets abandoned and you choose to starve yourself of it or even become scared of it.

In myself, I see a teeter-totter of emotional pull keeping me unsteady. I build attachments and expectations before I even experience. My view on the world is not naive, but more so child-like. Everything is colors and textures. I know what I want, but not always does the world feel or look like the ideas in my mind's eye. Emotional response is the only fall-back that makes immediate sense. From here, I am impulsive. This is a quality of an existence vested in the physical plane. A place where the body is an extension of the mind. 

True contentment comes from acknowledging the entire existence. Understanding the need to separate the body, mind and self; but also see them as the present. Contentment is being okay with what ever may. Not holding onto the things we can see or feel as if they are absolute. Contentment opens the door for experience. 

5.27.2015

I consistently feel as if I am in the realm of 'getting ready'. What exactly am I getting ready for? Beats me. 

The barrier between thought and implementation, for me, is confidence. I have opinions and wants and needs- but I am too timid to reach for them at times. This keeps all of these thoughts and ideas cooped up in my head. It is a funny thing. I know I have the power and knowledge to get where I want to be. Yet, I become discouraged by my own lack of confidence in myself. Before I try, I tell myself that I am not the one to do it. I am not the person that needs to put this out into the world. Yet, if not me, then who am I waiting for? 

We have all heard the quote, "Be the change you want to see in the world." 

That is exactly it. There is not time to sit and wait and hope someone else will get done what I need to get done. So, I am going to start getting things done. You should too. What are you wanting to get out of this whole deal?