.SOMETIMES RAW.

Letting go is healing but it is not always easy. A support network is important and I am glad to have people in my life who care, listen and help. Life is a constant flux and change. We can try to resist change but in the end, life happens. I would have loved to be in a different place many times but life has its way and many things that happen are and were out of my control. So what can be done? I can move forward to the best of my ability. I asked my friend if we are really moving forward when we are still holding on to the past. This question led to hours and hours of discussions. 

What happened, happened. We cannot turn back time. Knowing that everything changes is a positive thing in my eyes. It means that we are never permanently fixed and we have the option to either walk toward greater openness and light or to negativity and resentment. We truly have the ability to transform our body and mind to any higher or more developed state of existence. Whatever we choose it to be. I just have to observe myself and get to know who I am instead of continuously wondering why certain things happen to me over and over again. I thought many times that I am over X, Y, and Z or that I learned from previous “mistakes”, yet it seems that out of the blue I get hit/hurt again. This is a good indication that more inner work still needs to be done. 

So, I have been asking myself what life is trying to tell me. I know I am responsible for myself and that life can feel and be very effortful once I recognize that the way I was living for the last couple of years did not exactly serve me but I never asked myself what needed to change. Some sort of quasi-review of what happened and no conversation with my partner left me trustfully hoping for the best, sort of like “this too shall pass, things will sort themselves out eventually”. There was also a lot of negative controlling involved that wore me down and left me no room to reflect and connect with myself. 

My friend then asked me, “Do you know yourself?” Simple answer: A bit, I reckon. While we drank coffee and spoke I realized that everything still is very unsettling and the healing process is even daunting to think what lies ahead of me. Life throws new curveballs at me almost on a daily basis, new decisions need to be made and I realize that by entangling myself in certain ego version of who I am or was won’t help me to grow. Building a strong core and stable foundation is important. This entails knowing my heart (damn anatomy class), character strengths and skills, vulnerabilities and weaknesses, fears as well as the threshold of my comfort zone. This simply requires deeper self-reflection and most importantly self-honesty. I want to probe the mysteries of my heart more deeply to “dis-cover” why there were so many uncertainties in previous relationships and these battles to keep what no longer works afloat. 

My friend and I agreed that we just have this humbling ability to see life one brief moment at a time. Of course, there may be patterns but that is no guarantee that we are right. Sometimes there are too many options to choose from. Many people are scared to make the wrong decisions so instead, they stay put knowing that where they are right now is not the best place for them but it sure is familiar and familiar means comfortable to some extent. 

We have the ability to either destroy or build in our minds. We can German-Angst-worry and amplify it into a colossal set of potential problems that may never happen but paralyze me with fear. Mental strength is the key and makes me extraordinary. My friend spoke about some of his fears and it was a proof again that it’s inside, not outside, where we determine if someone is happy, lonely, sad, successful, ashamed, proud, overwhelmed, etc. Again, what happened to me, happened. There are no easy or quick fixes to this shit! I just want my brain to rest at night and stop thinking. In my anatomy class, I learned that our brain never ever sleeps. It works even while our bodies are at rest. Great! It makes connections and tries to further navigate us through this life. Awesomeness, but please, I need some rest. 

I know my mind is the only refuge from the rest of the world and I am not afraid to spend some quality time with myself to analyze certain things. And just because my heart wants something, doesn’t mean it is wise to pursue it. I learned that rational thinking and logic are put on silence when the heart is speaking. The language of our wants rarely focuses on what makes sense, but rather focuses on what needs to be quenched and usually, in hindsight, did not make sense at all. 

We spoke about certain fears that can be used to tell the brain to avoid risk; yet, nothing in life is ever safe, secure and can be controlled. What is it we try to stay safe from? Death, which cannot be avoided but maybe delayed? Failure? Nope, I have been there, many times and it is an essential part of growth I reckon. Suffering? Nope, this is an essential tool for survival. So playing it safe does not really cut it since we have little control. I know I have to stop the why-me-complex and stop ignoring my support network that means well.

Everything and everyone changes constantly. Nothing ever stays the same but letting go of the past in my own way enables me to be energized, clear and ultimately ready to enjoy the present and be ready to welcome the future. I am not afraid to get hurt because it is part of life. I learn from it when my mind is open. What I do not like in my life, I heal and what I already love, I love and enjoy more deeply. <3

An evening well spent, Mr. K.L. 

I experienced love (or so I thought) when I was 16 years old. I had my first boyfriend and realized that I never had a feeling like this before. A feeling of being totally happy and content with the other person. The word for this is apparently love, I thought, so I said it out loud. My boyfriend at that time paused however and let my words hang in the air for a few seconds before he responded, I think I love you, too. He explained to me later that he could not name something like love which is just a 4-letter word to him and he never really experienced or said it to anyone before. For me on the other hand, I thought I knew exactly what this word means since I had this strange new feeling in my chest everytime I thought of him. 

There are so many “firsts” in life. We learn and speak a new language, we start to ride a bike and we sort of know that the initial discomfort we experience is just temporary. Of course, we are expected to fall off that bike and scratch our knees as well as we are expected to destroy the pronunciation of the world “millefeuille”; however, we will figure it out eventually. Whatever seemed impossible at first becomes second nature at some point. This theory applies to a lot of things but it seems it does not so much with being or falling in love. 

What is love anyway? What do we actually mean when we say, I love you? 

Throughout the years I have learned and realized that love is perpetually uncomfortable rather than constantly thrilling. Yet, love is something that may keep me up all night. Love is a weird game of assuming and guessing and is great to misinterpret or to analyze to some insane point. What is a normal relationship? Do there need to be high highs and low lows at points or is it rather smooth sailing instead or this oscillating wave? 

So being in love in high school meant for me being engaged in silly fights, arguments, and betrayals but also with a lot of sobbing into the shoulder of his shirt after we were “good again”. It meant I wanted him to spend time with me all the time. It meant getting a “friendship ring”. It meant using him as a security blanket yet I knew when I joined police academy and moved away a breakup was imminent which also made my chest feel tight. So many changes and we were so young. It felt suffocating and intoxicating at the same time. It was messy, exciting, devastating, uncertain but all this is what love is supposed to be like, right? 

Is love a game? There are periods of time when I patiently waited for a message from my partners but nothing arrived. I thought this meant he is not that into me. If he does not write back after we had sex, it means he does not want to have a serious relationship. If he wants to move in with me too quickly, this means he really loves me because he wants to get to know me. I changed certain boyfriend’s names in my phone to “asshole”, “do not pick up”, “psycho” or a monster emoji. Sometimes, when people asked me if I am still in love with a partner I said, NO, absolutely not and deep inside I thought I just feel nauseated, pathetic, and precarious. So, maybe love is supposed to feel like that? Does this mean I am still in love? It cannot be love because I felt pain. Pain/love, I am not so sure about since I detest the housewife porn 50 Shades of Grey. 

I started dating again. He did not say I love you within the first week or months and I realized how happy this made me feel. Also, I did not have the feeling to say it either. I realized then and there that this label LOVE may just not be real love but just something you say because one is supposed to say it. “Screw love: respect and honesty are what we need”, a very close friend of mine told me tonight and I reckon he made a good point.

It is a great feeling to realize that fighting is not an issue with certain people. That things can be very easy and simple conversations and valuable time spent together is salient (fancy word for important). Cooking together, talking for hours, watching something or reading together is different without putting the love-label on it all but rather just enjoying each other’s company. Just totally and utterly unremarkable things that mean a lot to me. But this is where I am now realizing that love in its steadiest, truest and rewarding form is just simply dull. Since I do not focus and put pressure on love hence there is nothing to overanalyze and nothing to second-guess, to refuel or pursue, to proof which means it is easy and so contrary to popular stereotypes and cinematic tropes. That does not mean it is not exciting but it is something that does not pick me up and drops me but rather buoys me instead. It just is. And it is perfect this way. For me. 

This feeling when you sit somewhere and you do not quite know what to do with yourself and then you pick up your phone. You flip through social media a bit and then put it away but just to pick it up a couple of minutes later because there is something else you really need to research right away. Or maybe you are working on a project on your computer and are stuck with something difficult. The minute this used to happened to me, I checked Facebook quickly to see what is going on. Without me even noticing, half an hour just passed by while the cursor patiently blinks on my research page. Out of a sudden, I found myself on Amazon. Maybe it is that gadget on Amazon.ca/com that can make me run faster, write better, measure my heartbeat better or maybe I need this book that I wanted to read for so long.

The only thing that actually gets triggered is an impulsive, unproductive response to discomfort while clicking my way through things I a) don’t really need and b) I would only purchase to buy a better version of myself. Usually, the purchases I made on amazon.com/ca were rather an impulsive twitch than an intentional action. [“I enjoyed one book by the author so let’s get all of them”]

Years ago I had this though and fitness aspiration: Okay, I have to lose some weight. I am going to start running. I knew that just with the right gear it would all be so much more fun and easy and I would be off to the races in no time. I remember how happy I was when the brown box arrived and I slid my finger through the opening to reveal my new heart rate monitor (buy this one and get two books for free, kinda), running pants, running wind jacket, running shirt, running socks and running hair band. How come I also bought a perfume, diving equipment, a flashlight, a knife and a Mont Blanc pen?

Everything was just one single click away and “so cheap”. Dangerously too, I was a PRIME member and enjoyed free shipping. Everything was magically delivered to my front door in just 48 hours.  What I tried to do back then was to become a better version of myself without really putting in the work to get there. I thought that I am “taking action” when all I did was to just take out my credit card. I had been subconsciously convinced that a purchase is an action step and if I want to be a runner, purchasing a heart rate monitor is a step in that direction! The weird thing was that buying this particular heart rate monitor felt good and was exciting because I truly believed that I had taken the first step toward a healthier, better version of myself. I even checked my heart rate at the traffic light because this is what real runners do, right? Also, to impress people who waited next to me. So stupid. The next day it rained and I did not feel like getting my new equipment wet. I did not run. It rained for a week. I never wore that heart monitor again.

Looking back at my spending history from years ago,  I found that I spent a huge amount of money on small, cheap, meaningless purchases that added up just because I thought they would add value to my life. Yet, those purchases did not align at all with the life that I intended to live. A lot of my money went to those unintentional amazon purchases that silently added up while holding me back from other things I wanted to do. Through monitoring my spending habits (mostly on amazon), I wanted to align my actions with  my values and live more intentionally every day. It really all starts with minimizing distractions, building habits and creating new opportunities.

I started to think about my life and how I can minimize distractions and stop spending money on useless stuff.  Focusing on the essential is really difficult with a distracted, cluttered mind or a tight schedule. I started to focus on the things that keep me really busy every day but take me away from things that are actually important and matter. An example would be to clear my workspace or using my phone more intentionally; meaning, not bouncing back and forth between social media apps wasting time while sharing ten million things. I learned that I simply have to slow down and be more intentional about the way that I am using my time and attention so that I can create and do what really matters to me. Next, I wanted to build a foundation of good habits. This was the time when I started to meditate and to reflect what I am grateful for. I also stopped focusing on useless things like buying yoga pants instead of doing yoga; buying a laptop instead of writing that book; buying new running shoes instead of just walking outside or buying a new camera when I don’t even use the one I have at home.

Once I created the space for a meaningful change in my life and implemented habits that matter to me it was time to take it to the next level. This, for example, could mean sharing something that I know or learned. I created my blog from scratch and used it as my creative outlet and passion project, I wrote my book and now I am working on creating an income to live with even more freedom. It is important to start creating things that matter to YOU and to create opportunities to live a greater life overall. And to think before clicking that Amazon “buy now with one click-button”.