With age comes what???

With age comes wisdom. With age also comes grey hair. Then we touch upon the next deep question in life to ponder? Do we dare dye out the greys? I am 41, almost 42. I have three beautiful children and a husband whom I cherish. He is my spiritual partner and my life partner. I always said I would dye my hair when I got older. But something in me has changed lately, a shift in perspective. What if in fact hair color didn’t matter? What if it’s the heart that matters? The love we have for ourselves and our beauty? What if it mattered less that your hair shined and more that your soul shined? Focus on that love. Find it within you and hold it. Never let it go. Don’t end up like me almost 42 finally discovering where you left you’re all along…. let your soul shine proud!

P.s- I still might dye my hair if it gets too grey 🙂

Self love or self blame?

Which do you practice more of self love or self blame? Do you find yourself nitpicking every fault within yourself or do you give yourself room to breathe? Or you could both like me. I often find myself in front of the mirror thinking about the harm I have caused others. The hurt. The frustration. The pain. I know because I caused it not only to them but to myself as well. Some of us that experience heavy emotional trauma lack self love. When you practice self love you become more aware of your emotions, thoughts, feelings. It’s almost exhausting like a whole other job. So not only do you have to exercise, eat right, work an 8 hour day, clean the house, do the laundry, cook dinner, play with the kids, but oh you also have to be happy about it, not complain, be positive and not sow more bad karma. Haha! I often find my faults on the other side of my shame and my regrets. I used to say I never regret anything. But that’s not true. I regret things I’ve said, actions I’ve taken, moments where I’m so stressed my default is so complain to my family and dump more negativity onto their day. That’s where my shame lays, my regrets, my pain. My husband is a beautiful amazing man that I cherish and love. My husband is my superhero. I atone to you for my faults. My complaints. My behaviors that caused you harm or hurt. I ask for forgiveness. This day I have been made aware and made anew. I bust open the junk door file the file that states shame/regrets/complaints and toss it to the fires. I replace it with compassionate thoughts of love for myself. Today I begin a new day with a new life.

Welcome to today

Welcome to this day. Yes this one. Today is the day where you smile and appreciate your hectic stressful chaotic job. Today’s the day you thank your creator and angels for every crazy customer at work that speaks with disrespect towards you. You thank every one of them for being your teacher. Without them you’d never appreciate serenity or love or gentle kisses or sunshine. Without them you’d never appreciate the paycheck they provide your family with. Without them you’d never truly realize all of your dreams have come true. Yet you forget don’t you? Your ego says you need more, you need better, you need this or that. But do you? Emancipate yourself from mental slavery and free yourself. Take a step back outside your mind. Do you see it? The growth you’ve achieved thus far? Do you feel that? The beauty surrounding you? Do you know that there is more waiting for you? Behind those teachers you come across. There lays more beauty, more potential for change. Just keep believing, pushing, striving, yearning for more growth. More beauty. More sunshine amongst a world of clouds. Just go. Don’t wait! Today’s the day. Yes today!

Learn to Love your Lacks

Sitting at my desk texting with my husband chatting about self growth and improvement I realize I have to learn to love my lacks. Do you love your lacks or do you put them aside like a junk drawer? We all have a junk drawer. I have one in my kitchen. I recently bought little cubes and organized so it’s now a mildly put together junk drawer. But what about the one we hold within ourselves? The stuff that comes up when we are stressed, our default behaviors that we acquired from childhood. When shit hits the fan, do we react with anger and cursing? Or cry in fear of abandonment from our partner? I have done all of the above. I have been abandoned by a former partner who looked me in the eye and said he’d wish I wasn’t a female because he would punch me. Also various many other emotionally abusive comments. I have some emotional wreckage within my inner junk drawer. And why is it when I start writing this my ex husband texts me asking for money for our son’s braces. Suddenly my mood has shifted. I am now grumpy. Someone came and fucked up my junk drawer. I get triggered and anxious so very easily. And when I do I have this tendency to let the world know I am upset, because I want someone to fix it all for me. Someone to say “Hey, I can help with half the money you owe” or “I’m sorry you’re having a bad day I care about you”. Just that attachment need for external validation yet again is a strong desire within me. I vent I release I get outwardly angry. I always let the world know I am mad because I don’t like the feeling it gives me. In Buddhism, you are taught to just sit with the emotion and just let the monster stay there. You don’t have to acknowledge him (or her?) but just let him stay and hang out. But don’t talk to him, don’t feed him. Once you stop feeding him he will leave. But this is my struggle. This is part of Tara Brach’s R.A.I.N meditation. I highly recommend you do some research on this if you aren’t familiar. R is Recognize. A is Acceptance. I is Investigate. N is Nuture ( I have also seen this and Non-Attachment). I am still stuck on the A. I recognize my feelings and my junk drawer monster immediately. Inside my rational mind says it’s okay to just be here and now. But my monster is so used to getting attention he beckons for food and I immediately jump to oblige. But I am unable to Accept and just Allow.

Kindness with no expectations of reward

We all say we care and we all try to help when it’s needed. But when you’re overworked and underfed, working full time and taking care of a house and baby it’s exhausting!! I love caring for my family and I love my husband with all my heart. He’s my world, my spiritual partner and my life partner. He works extremely hard outside the homes and I work extremely hard inside the home. We have no family to help or financial means for sitters. Usually I’m up at 4am every day so I can exercise and mediate alone and crash every night at 9pm because I. Don’t. Stop. Moving. All. Day. I wish someone would acknowledge my exhaustion and my feelings. Why do I constantly search for external validation? Am I the only one? Is this because I’m lacking the confidence to love myself? I must practice the art of giving with no expectations of rewards. The journey of self continues..

Breathe in. Breathe out. Move on.

Jimmy Buffett sang a song with those wise lyrics. “Breathe in, Breathe out, Mov on”. How simple yet so incredibly difficult this is for most of us. I work in a field where I am treated very poorly on a regular basis (not by my coworkers) but the customers. I am working hard very day with my meditation practice, and wise speech. I am studying a lot about Buddhism and philosophy. I’m so fascinated by the history and material and educating myself on the studies. But I wonder… is the desire for happiness in a job selfish? Those words they test me, How many times can one person be treated so poorly by the customers before they break down? We all need money but don’t we deserve happy jobs too?

Goals and values

Make goals. Maintain values. When we are young, our parents try to instill work ethic and values. Save your money, stay in school, etc.. What if we already are successful but we don’t appreciate it? That’s basically greed and ego. What is success other than a state of mind? Success can be internal or external. Stick to small increments of goal making. Mediate for 2 full minutes this week and shoot for 3 minutes next week. Don’t overdo it. That’s where hesitancy and procrastion arise. Your feelings are a compilation of your attachment to the karma you’ve attached to of your past. You make a goal of exercise you don’t want to bc you say oh I’m so lazy I hate exercise etc. those feelings are attached to the karma you’ve accumulated. So just do it. Put your feelings aside. Yes just stop thinking and attaching to those thoughts and complaints. Just go exercise! Even if it’s a 20 min walk every day. You’ll start to enjoy that time and gain confidence to do more. Be kind to yourself and take it one step at a time.

The ego needs to be happy

Our ego mind. It wants constant gratification, the nice clothes, the fancy organic gluten free free range recycled eco friendly Prius- celery juice- plant based- keto eating bullshit or whatever the newest fad is. Can you tell I live in California? But it’s everywhere. Social media is loaded. I’m not sure about you, but when I sit down to meditate and take a look at my ego I am reminded of a three year old toddler running around with endless amounts of energy craving attention, craving sugar, craving toys. This ego driven mind that says we are only happy when we get this new item or the outside love and attention. But that’s not how it works. First you must find your inner peace. Then no longer will you need those things. Create your life and your story the way your inner self desires. Follow your bliss. There lays true happiness.

Are we creating the problem or solving the problem?

Sometimes I want to voice my opinion. But there lingers that old expression that says “opinions are like assholes…”. You know the rest. I’m angry because my ego constantly says I should always be recognized and acknowledged. I even tried to rewrite my ego words into a self blame rather than outward blame for attention. I let the emotions stay this time and try to just focus on rewriting my ego to mask the need for attention. My thoughts, my feelings, my need for external validation all lays within our selfish ego. Much of our pain and suffering in life is created within the story we create for ourselves. I want my words to sow love and goodness. No more going through the endless cycle of drama and anger. No more ego. Be supportive. Be kind. Be love.

Customer Service Jobs

Because at the end of the day it’s just you and your discipline… Customer service. Has anyone worked in this field before besides me? It’s not an easy one. Most people don’t reach out to customer service reps because things are great. But there also should be some form of respect or human kindness. Not in my job. The clients that come to the company I work for are less than educated. Now before you get defensive and think I’m being judgmental or anything, please believe me. I’m not. The clients we serve are not well educated, many are in a lot of debt, don’t have a valid social security number and are trying to gain a temporary financial boost to get a loan. Putting all that aside, we are still humans. We still all put our shoes on one at a time. But I get name called, spoken down to daily. A new client the other day was asking me questions about how the service we provide works. I was not understanding his lack of English so he said I’m a piece of shit and he was going to rip me a new asshole. Yes. This is something I go through every. Single. Day. If it’s not that person it’s another saying my company is a joke, or another one asking me the same question five times in a row because they refuse to read the instructions attached to the email. That negativity, that bad karma is flowing freely around my company. I love my hours, my position is full time all from home, I love my paycheck, I love supporting my family. But how much abuse can we take? That’s the question I have been pondering lately. Can I continue and just let this be what it is, accept the challenge of my patience and my wise speech, or do I step up, step out and stand up for myself and say. I DESERVE BETTER! Because at the end of the day it’s just you and your discipline..