hello! new year : new energy

2010; you have been an interesting one.. a lot has changed since we welcomed you with drunken arms on last year's NYE.

you have given me a completely new perspective on life. and on my Self.
you have given me some of the hardest times i have ever gone through,
and you have changed me for the better.
you have beat me up and spit me out only to show me that i can do anything.

you have opened my eyes to a whole new world. a bigger and better world.
you have helped me form great memories, with wonderful people,
and you have given me the time to dedicate myself to my passion.

i thank you for helping me to see what is truly important in life; my friends and family, my believers and encouragers. my times with them spent laughing and crying were some of the best and worst. but all individually inspiring.

i thank you for helping me to understand the true meaning of the words i read so long ago [Service above Self]
after pondering and thinking and applying this concept for countless hours i have now fully developed it to be the main concept and belief in my life.

i have given more love than ever before and i will continue to do so. it is no secret the world needs more of it. i will never give up, it will never stop.

i have danced with you, 2010, in the depths of great thought and positive action and in a very different way then i ever have before.
i have learned so much over many months about what it means to be human and what it means to be real. what it means to truly feel, and what it means to be truly thankful for God and love itself.
you have broken me open and made me whole,
and you have humbled me.
you have tested me.
and i have woken up day after day with a greater sense of who i am at my core and what i should be doing with my great heart.

at times you have made me want to give up
you have left me very confused, very lost and very hurt.
you have given me my one and only regret of my entire life; the feeling that i have not been my true self in an important situation.
you have given me the time to learn and understand that i assume too much.
and that i am too hard on myself.

and all i can say is; 2010 i thank you for not being easy. you have made me a better person.

now, here's to hoping 2011 brings as many spiritually-inspiring opportunites, because i am never done learning, but maybe in a few nicer packages :)
cheers.

the good ones

the ones we know are real are the ones who choose to stick by us through anything. they see our love and beauty even through our crying eyes.
throughout our lifetimes we will feel as though we owe a great deal to these ones, yet we will never know exactly how to repay them.
all we can do is never give up. never stop spreading the love. never let your own heart grow weary of truth.
the ones who never give up on us are the ones who nourish our soul. they are the ones who let us know we are loved.
on our worst day, these are the ones who are there to let us know that someone still believes in us. they let us know that someone will always love us. and that they still see the goodness in our hearts, no matter what has happened.
we are the fortunate ones for having such angels in our lives.

i am much different

i am much different than i was six months ago.

more gentle and kind,
more strong and sure.

more understanding and more compassionate,
deeper and more appreciative.

more directed and centered,
calm and loving.

i understand much more of my purpose and mission.
i understand much more.

i care more,
in a very truthful way.
manipulation and insincerity have no place in my heart,
i want to be good and spread goodness to people i touch.

all i am is me.
all i ever will be is this little girl who stands before you,
honest and sensitive,
heartfelt and true.

i seek the right,
and dream with the wild.

i believe in the universe,
after being broken open.

i trust my heart much more,
and i see my faults,
i know i am not perfect,
i understand nobody is.

i am much different,
and i am the same.

it is simple to me

love requires attention, constant work. it is never going to be easy.
people, men and woman, are all unique, simply different, and that difference is always going to stand in the way of the easy road.
taking the easy road for love never existed because that is not true love.
loving someone takes effort, responsibility, compassion.
you have to decide to love someone. the feelings alone won't take you to the end.
people fall in and out of love all the time, it's about never truly giving up that matters.
it's about never saying the words, 'i quit.'
it's about doing what you can to look at that person and simply know how much they mean to you.
love is and always will be hard.
but it's rewards are unfathomable. something greater than anything we can receive.
love is God's gift to us here on earth.
that gift can be difficult to give and receive at times but it is always there in the choices we make.

"...they all seemed to know something God knows: that we are sent here to love each other and to help each other- that our lives are about each other." (Elizabeth Lesser, Broken Open)

love is.

blue : dreams

there are many things we wish we would have said.
things that would have been better in the moment.
but things we only think of well after the real moment has passed.

there are many things we wish we would not have said.
things said out of haste, out of confusion, out of hurt feelings and love.
often times we find ourselves rethinking the patterns of what happened and reproducing them, only in our heads, as what we wish would have happened.
and this is all we can do for the moments have passed and the only moment we now hold is the one we are in.

regret is not the word.
only the wish to have been stronger or more clear headed during the moments.
nothing ever seems to come out right when we are looking into another's eyes.
hurt fills the heart in ways that don't make sense,
ways that cloud and justify actions that are not normally justifiable.
love confuses and leaves us with nothing but the want to say the perfect thing,
but always with the reality of saying it upside down.

there are many things we wish we would have said or not said.
this may always be true.
sometimes things don't come out right.
the only hope is that we have bore our souls and will be understood through a look and a feeling in the heart, rather than through our chosen words.

WriteON::

On November One I set out to write a book.
I had no expectations of what this book would be about, if I would even enjoy this huge task I signed up for or if I would finish. I refrained from even forming any expectations in my own head about this project, such as it's "good" factor when all was said and done or if it would even be "readable." I simply thought, "I shall write and write and write and see where it takes me."

It took me in a direction that I never thought it would. Or rather, in a direction I secretly knew it would take me but had been scared to give in to before. I found that my writing took me back to the beginning of my transformation into who I am now, it lead me down my own path and deep down into the corners of my heart I have tried (unsuccessfully) to cut off. Oddly enough, writing became not only an escape from living in my own head, but at the same time the biggest magnifying glass ever into who I am and why I am that way. I experienced things all over again, thought long and hard about my interactions and experiences in this beautiful world and got to know myself outside of my self.

I started jokingly calling it "free therapy" and in a way that is what it turned out to be. Just a reflection on everything that has happened to me and how I have tried to let it positively effect and change me for the better. I wrote about hard times and I how I have let them break me open into being a more kind and loving soul (the opposite of what certain events could have done) and I wrote about the greatest and most meaningful experiences in my life. I found that I wrote a lot about feeling one with the world and centering myself into a certain loving-kindness.

We exist for a reason and it is to be good to one another, to be loving and courageous, gorgeous and mindful. We exist to love and to spread love and to believe in love and to fulfill our life's passion. We exist to be great, we exist to be kind. We exist to smile and to hug and to forget about the past and live Now, with each other, in harmony as much as possible.

We exist to love.
We exist to do good and be great.

Many people have asked to read my "book" which is actually a little frightening. I guess I could say I bared my soul and put everything down on paper that exists in my head. It is scary to think that someone may actually want to read about who you really are.

I will post some of it here, on my blog, but this month-long madness of a project they call Nanowrimo has greatly helped to pave the way for writing and publishing my first real book. You can all buy a copy whenever it comes out so you can read my heart, and I can say I sold at least ten copies :)