None But Ourselves

I love it when I have the house all to myself, & it's just me and my kitty. It's when I have this space to myself that I get inspired to do laundry or make a crazy cool mural on my wall. When someone is telling me what to do ... I just don't want to do it.

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The supreme good is like water,
Which nourishes all things without trying to.
It is content with the low places that people disdain.
Thus it is like the Tao.

In dwelling, live close to the ground.
In thinking, keep to the simple.
In conflict, be fair and generous.
In governing, don't try to control.
In work, do what you enjoy.
In family life, be completely present.

When you are content to be simply yourself
and don't compare or compete,
everybody will respect you.

Verse 8, Tao Te Ching

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I feel like this verse from the Dao particularly applies to my life up till this point. That has been my biggest weakness all along: comparing myself to others.

Like that was my problem in New York. I was more concerned & obsessed with other people's lives and accomplishments that the only time I left for myself was filled throwing a pity party. Grosss.

I remember this one time back on the east coast where I hadn't seen or spoken to my very best girlfriend, Luna, for two weeks. These two weeks hadn't been the best for me and I was angry with her for being absent during them. I marched over to her dorm ready to tell her off for being a bad friend & everything. When I told her that it had hurt me that I had been struggling with some overwhelming emotions and she wasn't around for support, she said, "I didn't realize you depended on me so much."

I was kinda taken a back. Not really the response I had been expecting, certainly not the one I would have given at the time, but you know what, there was truth behind Luna's words.

Why don't we depend on ourselves more? We are all equipped with the tools & life skills to make ourselves happy. Sometimes it just takes a little momentum, but creating/building that momentum is a positive action because we know those steps will lead to happiness. We need none others but ourselves to achieve joyful bliss.

Being in the company of others should increase good vibrations, not replace them.

Besides family, people will come and go for various reasons. Sometimes even family, actually. Your life is an open doorway that leads to other agents to come into your life & vice versa, yet ultimately you are the one who shapes your path. 

You will see through what you want to. 

xx hugs & lovin' xx

The Infinite, The Eternal

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The Tao is infinite, eternal.

Why is it eternal?

It was never born;

thus it can never die.

Why is it infinite?

It has no desires for itself;

thus it is present for all beings.

The Master stays behind;

that is why she is ahead.

She is detached from all things;

that is why she is one with them.

Because she has let go of herself,

she is perfectly fulfiilled.

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The Tao Te Ching

People come and go in our lives for various reasons. To some extent, we will never know the truth of that friendship, devastating break-up, or monstrous family intervention. These things don't explain to us very well what their purpose was, besides to mind fuck with us.

In every soul, there is pain. With that pain comes wisdom. It takes a thoughtful and mindful human being to convert their sorrow into something worthy. Not everyone in the world knows how to deal with difficult emotions, leading to attempts to self-medicate with sex, drugs, blood, money. Everyone has their own shit to deal with; everyone has their own fuckedupness to address.

fucked.up.ness, adj. : eternal thoughts, emotions, past and present experiences that contribute to the subconscious internal darkness that resides within each of us; a released negative energy that can consume a human being if they do not climb out of the subconscious dark, deep hole.

One of the little gnomes in my well of fuckedupness is named Tina. Throughout our middle and high school years, I aspired to be like this girl whom I called my best friend. She had the confidence of a 20-year-old, yet the maturity of a 10-year-old. Tina had her own shit to deal with but that's just it: she didn't deal with it. It's like there was this constant chaos occurring in her home life that later would negatively impact her to make stupid decisions, yet shrug it off. I felt the responsibility of almost mothering her, since after a time I was the last friend who stuck by her side regardless of the poor manner in which she treated me.

On a warm summer day last year, Tina texted me asking if our other friend could borrow my bike so they could head down the bike path to the beach. Tina asking me for a favor so she could hang out or do something with someone else was a regular thing for us - living down the street from me we spent enough time together for her to easily get annoyed with me. The friend this time though ... well I didn't really trust him with my beach cruiser. He was a rough and tumble boy (I mean, who knows what happened to his bike) and the bike path had a deep riverbed. Nuh uh, I thought, not gonna happen. So I made up some bullshit excuse ("Sorry, I need my bike today for errands").

Before I continue, let me preface by saying that a close friend of Tina's had passed away a couple of weeks before this in a freak car accident with some of the boys. So yeah, that happened.

Not expecting my "no" to be a big deal, I get really surprised and shocked when I receive a blast of texts from Tina calling me a priss, saying not to come over her house ever again -and boom- I'm out of her life forever. Whatthefuck?

In retrospect, I realize it was a good thing our friendship ended over such a mundane thing. Had Tina not had a text-breakdown, I perhaps wouldn't be recognizable today. She taught me so many valuable things about drugs, boys, self-confidence. But she was also a horrible friend, and turns out I'm not the only good person who was unexpectedly left from her life.

Funny thing is? I kinda miss her sometimes.

I don't know, it's like someone can do so many unforgettable things to you (make you feel ugly, put you down in front of others, disappear on you when you need them), yet all you remember is the person they were that made you happy at some point. She made me happy quite a bit: banished my insecurities, told me everything was gonna be alright, always had faith in me, believe I deserved better than our circumstances. I miss that.

Now I know that you can't force friendships. Creating a connection is something that happens organically and if your rush it ... well then it's ruined. It's a slow process, but you take those pauses to do things for yourself. Like write in your blog and try to learn things from your fuckedupness.

Go do yourself a favor and act on instinct. Every. Day.
Your gut is never wrong and your mind plays tricks on you.

xx Hugs & Lovin' xx

           Anna

Karma's Little Accidents

So this morning, I ate shit.

Let me rephrase that: as I was biking to work on this beautiful Monday morning, my chain slipped off as I was pedaling furiously, I lost control of the bike, and smacked my head (along with other bits) straight upon the pavement ending in a twisted heap with metal and limbs intertwined. 

Besides being shaken up & slightly embarrassed for the dad taking his daughter to daycare who stopped to peel me off the road, I'm thankfully all right.

What can I say. Shit happens.

Biking has been a big release for me since I've returned home. It's taking a good scuffing up for me to realize that I've been quite lucky to not have been in any sort of accident before now, with the amount of biking I do. Because after a Friday night of cattiness & craziness, it feels oh-so-good to wake up Saturday morning, jump on my cruiser, and hit the beach. So satisfying.

Karma, as defined by Merriam-Webster via online, reads as the following:

1. the force generated by a person's actions held in Hinduism and Buddhism to perpetuate transmigration and in it's ethical consequences to determine the nature of the person's next existence
                                                                      and/or

2. the force created by a person's actions that some people believe causes good or bad things to happen to that person


I believe that me almost ending up sportin' an eye patch as my new accessory, has something to do with that second bit. 

Why? Well, let's just say it's quick easy to be vain and egotistical when Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and texting bombard your every day life. I love it, I hate it,  whatever = I'm a part of this generation. It's inevitable that this culture will consume me.

Yet it's kinda scary thinking that my first thought this morning to start my week off was to catch an ultra-cool snapshot of me doing a challenging yoga pose at the studio. Then posting it to Instagram, and making everyone jealous because they can't do/wish they could do what I'm doing.

Whaaaaaaat.

When did our thinking come to this? Even in the days of MySpace we had a little more discrepancy. Didn't we?

Or maybe it's always been this bad and I'm just realizing it.

So to conclude, I'd like to share a new routine of mine, beginning today. I was inspired by Dr. Wayne Dyer's Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life CD Audio Set initially, and then other events in my life just kept pointing me towards this little book: The Tao Te Ching.

Every morning I'm going to read a passage, say it aloud, affirm it.... & attempt to put that passage into practice for the day. Also, besides this blog, I'm taking a little sabbatical from Facebook, Instagram ... all that crap. Selfie's + Stiches? Uh, no thanks.

Hopefully this exercise will humble me a bit more, and make me sense the appreciativeness one can have for one's own being. Loving oneself is first and foremost, one of our main priorities in life I think.

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The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.

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xx hugs & luvin' xx 

       Anna