Find the Yin to your Yang :)

I am not here to bullshit anyone, and I am not going to lie. Yes, I try to keep a positive attitude about life, trying to see the humor and irony, instead of focus on the pain. But shit happens, and we all have bad, bad days. I am not perfect, nor are those around me. We are all human.

So I have had a particularly bad last few days. The details don't really matter. It is the same of what you are going through, I am sure: family drama, financial stress, disease, death, unnecessary drama, work, etc.

I woke up this morning under a dark cloud. I woke up aware of this, not really liking it too much, and not sure how I was going to "fix" it. I made some tea, took a hot bath, and put on my war paint. I decided to drive down to the local bike path which is along a peaceful creek, and took my dog for a long walk. Luckily it wasn't very crowded down on that path because I sang while I walked. It felt awesome.

I took my sweet pup home, got her some water, and drove into our little downtown area. I am not sure why, but I feel good when I am in our old part of town. There are so many cute local businesses: bakeries, coffee shops, restaurants, salons, and clothing stores. It's just so quaint! One of the shops I love is like a permanent "craft fair", with booths set up by local vendors, and it's a mix of antiques, gifts, handmade items, and clothes. They happen to sell my favorites candles, and I just ran out of mine yesterday. So I went and bought my favorite candle. I picked up a few greeting cards, as I like to have cards on hand for the right occasion. Then I strolled down to the corner to the local coffee shop, and ordered my favorite treat, a green tea latte.

One of the cards I bought, I specifically picked out for my best friend. She lives in another state, and we don't get to see each other, or even speak to each other as often as we would like. I didn't have any specific intention in the card; it was more of a simple hello. 

As I started to write, I began thanking her for her friendship of over 20 years. I guess I had never thought about how much that had meant to me. You see, my best friend and I lived a few streets away from each other as children, and we met riding the bus together. I remember the first time we met. She was sweet, kind, and beautiful. And she was nice to me, which I wasn't so used to, especially at that age.

I wasn't the cutest kid. I was overweight. I had bad skin and teeth. I didn't dress well. I had a bit of a rough edge. I was a little too smart and way too socially awkward. Jessie was beautiful, cultured (as much as you can be at that age), had nice clothes, and was artistic. She sang so beautifully, and I couldn't even play a recorder. When I met Jessie, it was like she saw the person I was capable of being, that no one else saw. She has always loved me for exactly who I am and the person I have the potential to be, and she would never let me fail. We have definitely had bumps in the road of our friendship, but those bumps made our bond even that much stronger. She loved me when I felt unlovable, unworthy. What a profoundly valuable lesson.

Jessie and I get to see each other a few times a year. On a visit to my house a few years ago, she had left a pair of earrings by accident. I called her, and she wasn't too upset about forgetting the earrings. She said, "No worries, I'll get from you next time I am out there." She never did ask for those earrings back. 

When I am having a bad day, I put in her earrings and I feel like I have a part of her there with me. I texted her a pic of myself wearing her earrings this morning. She responded with the fact that she wears my bracelet...Huh, I don't even know what bracelet she is talking about, because obviously I am not missing it. And I realize that is because I don't need the bracelet, she does. Just like I need the earrings.

Jessie recently bought her first home. I realize I never got her a housewarming gift. Bad friend! So I leave the coffee shop and head back down to the Candle store. I instantly see a handmade kitschy angel wall decoration. The colors are muted and soft. The angel is, well, angelic and sweet. It reminds me of Jessie. I think of her as being so kind, soft-hearted, warm, loving, deeply creative, and wonderfully passionate about life. I keep looking around the shop and stumble upon a LARGE black and white metal sign with a meaningful quote about life. It says something about clouds and silver linings. And then it dawns on me that these two things I am drawn to in this store are the yin and yang of our friendship. She is the warm, soft, kind angel, and I am the hard-edged, loud, abrasive, screaming sign. I decide to buy the sign instead of the angel. I haven't seen her new place yet, but I can imagine how serene and warm it is. But now she has no choice to hang a loud, edgy reminder of me on her new wall.

I love you +Jessie Hebert!

K

The Lamb

"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."

-Ernest Hemingway

You will hear me talk a lot about integrity and authenticity, as I firmly believe that they are key to a full and happy life. And amazingly, every one of has those moments of pure bliss when we are truly living in the moment, and enjoying it. As I reflect on my life, I see a few moments of clarity and authenticity, and in those moments, I was so content. The rest of my 32 years, however, was filled with in-authenticity  fear, pain, judgement, labels, agendas, and ego. But recently, I have come to realize that no one could ever hurt me as much as I hurt myself. So I made the decision to stop with the self-hate.

As I went through this transformation, I realized that in myself I felt like I had somehow lost my innocence; I was unclean. But realized my perception of purity was so flawed. 

I think so many of us have this perception that we are somehow unclean, broken, and flawed because of our past and our mistakes, and also for our current desires. Desire is something that is a positive emotion. (We shouldn't be ashamed of things that bring us pleasure, as long as they ultimately don't cause us pain.) Then we just give up on ourselves because of the extreme guilt, and then we lose our hope. It's so vital to understand that scars have their value; they are reminders of how strong we were to survive, not to show us we were once wounded.

If you are Christian, scripture refers to this innocence as the lamb. I believe this is the difference between knowledge and wisdom. We are and have been living in an age of Knowledge. Knowledge is the acquiring of facts and data, not the application of the data. Wisdom is being able to discern between what is right and just in said knowledge. If we can reconcile the two, it leads to Insight, which is the ability to see "clearly", and that there is a bigger picture outside of our own ego. Then we can apply the knowledge for the greater good, which is the ultimate goal.

By definition, Innocence is a lack of guilt, void of ego, and optimistic view of self/world. And loss of innocence is simply an increased awareness of evil, pain, or suffering, in ourselves and the world around us. Innocence isn't directly related to your mistakes and errors in judgement. We all have so much to give but we are hindered by our own pain. I have come to believe lately that the innocence that we are searching for is reconciling the knowledge with wisdom to gain and apply insight with integrity into all aspects of life.

I see so many people in pain around me daily. I see truly good people that are just so sad, and don't have any idea where to turn. My challenge would be to strive to be more authentic, not necessarily positive (read attached article I read this morning).Stop Being Positive...

We all want and desire something real, something to make us feel. We all want to love, be loved, and be comfortable enough to expose our real selves. Why not start with us? Yea, we may have some discomfort, but that is a feeling, right?

Something to think about,
K

Finding Happiness

This post is a request by a long-time friend +George Stahl. Thank you for the inspiration for this post...

As human beings, we are in this constant 'fight' for our happiness, or whatever image we have that happiness may or may not be. But have you ever really stopped and thought long and hard about what happiness is and the meaning of true happiness in relation to yourself?

I have to admit that I had never done this. And I am a thinker, an analyzer, and student of life. Happiness is such an obscure word. What does that mean? Wikipedia defines happiness as, "a mental or emotional state of well-being characterized by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy."

I have been thinking for several days about +George Stahl's question about "what is happiness". I have found that if I seek the answers and really listen, I get the answers I seek. A few days after the initial question, my dearest friend +Jessie Hebert  sent me a video text out of the blue of her 87 year old aunt dancing, singing, and laughing. I watched that video a few times, and I smiled. I knew that this 87 year old woman, was young and pure of heart. She had no fear, no self-doubt. My best friend's aunt is the epitome of how I hope to evolve, spiritually. She had figured out the secret to happiness, and was the living, breathing embodiment of pure contentment.

I know you have met those people in your life. They don't have to necessarily be 87. They come in all shapes, sizes, races, sexes, and ages. These are the people that are just happy regardless of the shit life throws at them. But guess what, I don't think that the "secret" to happiness is as far-reaching as we think.

As I wondered about happiness, I wanted to break it down into a hand full of the most important dynamics of happiness. They are as follows:

FINDING TRUE INNER PEACE
Peace, by definition, is an ending to a war or fighting. We all (should) have a desire to end all the hate and fighting in the world, but unfortunately we cannot change the world until we change ourselves, until we deal with our own internal war. We all have some sort of internal conflict, whether we are conscious of it or not. The secret to finding inner peace is living a life of integrity. For more information, please read yesterday's post "Falling From Grace". We are all living in this paradigm of fear. And fear is simply an emotion of a perceived threat. You cannot be at peace until you lose the fear. Where there is fear, there is doubt. Doubt creates negativity (conscious or unconscious) and negativity is poison to the soul. Not trying to be all "fire and brimstone" but truly think about how you feel when you are overwhelmed with fear, doubt, and negativity. It's awful!

LETTING GO
Once you have begun the path of self-awareness and inner peace, you have to let go of the pain. Pain sucks, I am not going to lie, but you will just halt your personal growth by trying to run, numb, or ignore the pain. Address it, forgive yourself, let it go.

LIVING FULL
Watching my best friend's aunt was a beautiful visual reminder to live a "full" life. We are creatures of passion, yet we choose to punish ourselves with more pain, self-destruction, and self-loathing. When you have made peace with yourself, forgiven your transgressions, and "let it go", then you can be completely comfortable in your own skin. It is with that comfort that comes the beauty and power of living your "truth". This means being able to openly express your enthusiasm, passion, and ambition with the world, regardless of what anyone thinks. It means being comfortable to fully express yourself physically, emotionally, and intellectually. 

And the dancing 87 year old? Her truth was that she knew that her chronological age is just a number. That she is shouldn't fear tomorrow, and instead she should live in the moment and dance.

May you find your peace, 
K 

Falling From Grace

I first want to apologize to those of you that enjoy my work for my recent hiatus. I have been struggling with finding my balance for the last 32 years, so now I am practicing what I preach, so I took a few days off.

I feel compelled to write about Integrity. It has been a very common theme lately in my microcosm of my life all the way up to the macrocosm of the massive problems in the country/world that are approaching a tipping point.

Integrity is defined as "a firm adherence to a code, especially that of moral values" or "the quality or state of being complete or undivided". I would argue that every singe one of you reading this currently has or had some sort of imbalance in your life. I have found that personally, every time I have felt this "imbalance" it is because I am living outside of my personal "Integrity" or my core belief system. This can be small stuff that we aren't even conscious of, like shopping at a large corporation that does not operate within or close to your personal value system.

Let me relate this through a personal story. Let's say that my husband and I worked for a company for several years that we deeply believed in. It was a rare company in today's world that regardless of it's size and growth, the corporation and leaders made every decision weighing the pros and cons, and making conscious decisions that best met the needs of the Team Members and the Consumers. Yes, we all need a little profit at the end of the day to continue our pursuit of happiness, and that happiness is spread by helping others by building them up, which is why to this corporation, it was important to keep the Team Members top of mind. 

Let me make it very clear that "profit" is not a dirty word. There are some leaders and business owners in this world that do have "wealth" but consciously choose to use their wealth to spread joy, and to uplift the "down and out".

Let's say that somewhere, somehow, this company got lost in the greed that is oh-so-appealing in today's modern world. We all have a hedonistic side that operates purely out of instinct, so of course it is possible to fall from grace, so to speak. 

From that one "tipping point" of indiscretion, and operating outside of integrity, the whole balance of good and integrity is thrown out of balance. The company gets  taken over slowly by leaders that do not value the company's system of integrity. And all the Team Members that lived, breathed, and believed the philosophy of "goodness" and integrity start feeling out of balance because deep down, they know they are no longer supporting the greater good. They start to realize they feel so lost and out of balance because they are not living their "personal truth" of system of integrity. As humans, we understand very clearly the concept of "if you are not a part of the solution, you are a part of the problem", even though sometimes we choose to turn off our inner voice of truth.

The antonyms of integrity are: badness, evil, inequity, sin, and wickedness. I have found that evil is not the man in black standing in a dark alley. Evil, wickedness, sin, etc. are very real and presented today in very shiny, pretty, well-spoken packages. The state of your life today is a reflection of the choices you decided to make in the past. Ultimately, if you choose to be "whole" and live your truth, you can control your own destiny.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” 
― Rainer Maria Rilke

Find your truth and live it fully!
K

PS - I haven't forgotten about the request...It's in the works!

The Tiger Within

"A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger."
-Proverbs 15:1

I had a hard conversation with my 19 yr old son this afternoon regarding anger. Unfortunately, my son and his father are going through the quintessential tumultuous father-son relationship (ie-they don't see eye to eye on ANYTHING). As an outsider, I can see the core of their problem, and it's very simple. They simply are two different people that speak completely different languages which in turn creates mass confusion on both sides. Throw in the fact that they do not speak the same language. My husband is very action-oriented, where as my son is more emotion-oriented. They simply do not understand each other, and it's neither one of their faults. Have you ever been traveling and attempted to communicate with someone that speaks an actual other "language" from your first language? Have you become slightly emotional (ie-frustrated) because they weren't "understanding" you? Have you, ahem, found yourself raising your voice and increasing your intensity?

I explained to my son that at it's core, their mutual anger was repressed negative emotions over the years from their failure to "communicate" effectively. I said, "Anger is a very natural, passionate emotion but its like a wild animal with only instinct, no reason. Control that animal instinct with your intellect to know better. But release it because it is energy, powerful energy. Write, sing, workout, draw, but please do something to release the emotion."

My talk with my son had got me thinking about emotions, especially because I have always been "passionate" or extreme in my emotions. An emotion is a biological (has energy), subjective (influenced by personal feelings), and conscious (being aware of) expression. So, it is some sort of energy that is controlled by our emotions, and we know it! 

There are two extremes of emotions, what I call the "passionate" emotions. The excited extremes are: ecstatic, energized, aroused, bouncy, nervous, perky, and antsy. Conversely, the Angry extremes of emotions are irritable, resentful, miffed, upset, mad, furious, and raging. There are obviously "grey" emotions that are in between that energetically are more neutral such as: fulfilled, content, mopey, blue, sympathetic, or tense. When you experience these emotions, they are not quite as intense.

Emotion is derived from a French word. It means to stir up. When you stir up the energy in your body (meaning the two extremes of the passionate emotion), it's important to release said energy. My son always asks me how he can control (ie-release) the anger. I personally highly recommend punching bags (because it works wonders for me). But I know my son's language; I know his gentle spirit is better suited towards creating something beautiful, like writing or singing. He is a beautiful writer that evokes such emotion and imagery. And he loves music. So inside I secretly hope to myself he takes my advice to write; maybe he can become a song writer someday.

As our conversation ends and he tells tells me, "Thanks. I love you." I answer, "I love you, too." And my heart smiles wide. I immediately thank my creator for bringing this incredible young man into my life, and for this lesson in life about the power of love.

 And then it dawned on me that you will always find what you seek I have recently discovered that I currently have everything I ever wanted: a wonderful, supportive family, a loyal circle of friends, enough food in my family's mouth and clothes on our backs, and to just live! Just because it isn't exactly as I had imagined, it's even more beautiful.  So I recommend that you, a.) be careful what you seek and b.) don't turn away that which you have been seeking when you find it if it isn't in the package you expected.

Live in Simple Abundance,
K

Finding Balance

When I woke up this morning, I could definitely feel the residual debauchery from my weekend. With what I have gone through health-wise over the last 5 years, once you start to get well, you will cling onto that "wellness" with your bloody fingertips, hanging on for dear life.

My back muscles were sore and achy. My feet, knees, and hips were achy. My stomach was upset and I was nauseous. All I wanted to do was climb back in bed and rest my tired, sore body. But something in me said, "Kristin, this is 100% your fault. You have been indulging in Starbucks everyday for the last three days. You have been drinking too much, eating crappy, and not taking time for yourself." I paused and realized, yes, this was my fault. Now, keep in mind I wasn't trying to 'kill' myself. I had been very busy with a new business venture, helping plan a friend's birthday party, and baby sitting my grandson all week. We also had family in town, spent all day Saturday out and about, then attended a play and birthday party Saturday night. Life happens. Things come up. And it is so important to welcome those things because that is what life is all about. We (hopefully) strive to be all we can to those we love. But remember, you have to take care of yourself before you can be in top shape to take care of others. Balance is the key. And let me tell you, I have a very hard time being consistent with balance in my life.

So yes, I threw off my own health (unintentionally), so I have no one else to blame, and nothing to do but fix it. So I dragged my own sore ass out of bed. I made myself an organic half-fresh juice/half protein shake to restore my body from the inside. I called my miracle worker chiropractor, Dr. G and made the next available appointment. And I put in a gentle yoga DVD. I consciously worked towards "finding my balance" again. I have learned that your body will tell you exactly what it needs if you can quiet your mind enough to hear it.

"Life is a balance of holding on and letting go."

K

Laughter Is The Best Medicine

They say that laughter is the best medicine, right? We could sure use that kind of medicine in today's world. Laughter can be such a powerful tool. Joking can make light of a difficult situation, which can lead to diffusion of tension and aid relationship building. Humor keeps the mind light and young. Laughter has so many healing properties; laughter decreases stress hormones, boosts the immune system, improves mood, improves breathing, burns calories, and even produces anti-aging properties in facial muscles. Awesome, right? What happens when seemingly harmless humor becomes used as a weapon? It is awful that in our society today we have made a huge shift in how we use this powerful tool called laughter.

I have a past relationship that was built on passive aggressive humor. Every single joke or prank was at my expense. I've always tried to be objective about things, so I tried really hard not to get my feelings hurt. But after a while, it sure didn't feel like love. But it did feel a lot like pain.

If I ever did protest a joke at my expense, I always got the canned response of, "I was just joking!" 

Folks, why would we use laughter (such a beautiful gift) to hurt others?

And relax, I am not talking about sarcasm. Sarcasm can be like a pinch of cayenne pepper that can add spice to a dish. Sarcasm can be like the word "shit"; it has it's politically incorrect purpose, but in some situations, it's absolutely necessary.

What I would say though is that too often we mask our pain, fear, insecurity, etc. through mean-spirited humor. And this is the epitome of being passive aggressive, for this behavior says, "I'm a mean person attempting to present myself as a nice, funny person, but I ultimately I want to hurt you too." And if you think about it, that just makes you a lying, mean person with bad intentions.  

Ultimately it's about intent. Is your humor well intended? Are you trying to lighten the mood, to ease pain, to comfort? Or is your humor a thinly veiled attempt to hide your pain and  pass it to another like some sort of "pain disease"?

Every single time I have caught myself engaging in such behavior, I find that I'm feebly attempting to protect myself, hide my pain. We all have pain. It's time we stop the awful cycle of self-destruction. If we all loved each other just half as much as we hate, the world would truly be heaven on earth.

"Respect people's feelings even if they mean NOTHING to you because it could mean EVERYTHING to them."

Thanks for reading,
K