Speeding things up.

Lol I make myself laugh.

I've been doing a lot of work with the lower energies, the red-orange-yellow. Security, motivation, personal power, a sense of self and family; these are things I've lacked in my life and which I am now working to build. I've come so far. So, so far. I continue to think of myself as "lacking" in these areas. But I realized. When I take a look at my energy, what I see in my mind's eye is orange. Orange is the color I can visualize the most easily and which feels the most....present. I am not as lacking as I thought I was. I'm already here. I had been fighting myself, trying to build something I didn't think I had. But I did. Lol. Silly me.

As I sit here I'm trying to bring a little focus to the higher centers, because my focus has been on the lower centers for so long. I find it's actually a little painful. Perhaps it's the headache I already have that's making the energy too much to handle right now? I know that's part of it. But a part of me also feels like my higher chakras are fueling the work that's being done in the lower chakras. As though they're saying, "Nah, we're cool up here, you keep doing what you're doing down there."

Now I feel like even focusing on the lower chakras is kind of overkill. Perhaps it really is the headache (which has been coming and going for the last few days. Part crazy baby sleep schedule, part fighting the beginnings of a cold). But then there's the part of me that feels as though....I've finally gotten somewhere. I've finally achieved something. God KNOWS I'm not fully there yet. But I'm close. I'm damn close. What am I close to? Just allowing myself to be, now that I think of it.

There's more to it than that, though. I feel like things happen backwards for me. Most people are trying to slow themselves down, take a closer look at themselves. I'm trying to speed things up, see the world around me. After a lifetime of being shut down, dead and lonely, I need a little liveliness in my life. I need a little living. For me, "allowing myself to be" means actually DOING. I've spent a long, looong time in my life doing nothing and hating myself. Lately, I've been working on doing. Allowing myself to get up and DO. I tend to trap myself. I tend to make excuses. I'm lazy I suppose. But then I end up hating myself. And where does that lead me? Hating myself. Eugh.

I left the house without the baby for the first time today. I was not as nervous as I thought I would be. She was with her daddy and in good hands. I took a good walk and got the energy flowing in my hips, which have always been tight. As soon as I brought the focus there, I thought about my daughter and felt a mild wave of guilt. It confused me and I spent the remainder of my walk wondering where it came from. Did I feel guilty that I was out without her, good as it felt to have some time to myself to walk freely and get the blood pumping? I think, it wasn't specifically that I was out without her, but that I don't get that good creative, active energy flowing as often as I should with her. Almost like she misses out on good, happy, active Mommy, and so misses out on experiencing that for herself. I was raised lazy. I don't want to raise a lazy child. She is three months old. Now is the time to begin.


On the crafty side, (or.....foodie side? Eh. Same thing, in my book.) I made applesauce! And the apples came from my own backyard. Macintosh. Love it.

I didn't put any cinnamon or sugar (GASP I know, right?) so it's just plain apples and some water and a tiny bit of lemon juice. But the plan is to freeze it (soon as I have the time to puree the whole pot) for when the Bean starts solids. So......no sugar. And seriously, homegrown apples? Who needs the sugar?


Big pot o' apples. The smell just screams autumn. And yum. It screams yum.

All my apples chopped and in the pot. Boyfriend was at work. Wish I could have chopped apples with someone. Would have been fun.
I also wish I could take a picture of a scent. Oh. Mah. God.
I was holding a supremely fussy baby while I took this picture. It was honestly the best one I could get. <3 br="br">

And just for good measure. The Bean, contemplating the intricacies of Life.

She wouldn't keep still for a shot. But that smile... *squeee* <3 br="br">

'Tis all, folks. =)

Perseverance

My first official blocking project!

These earrings came out fantabulous. Blocking is a lot easier than I thought and I don't know why I was so intimidated by it for so long. I tend to believe things are a lot harder than they actually are. Makes it difficult to actually want to try things, ya know? But, here's the result of taking the risk and jumping into it! Not too shabby =)


Here's Ellie helping out. =) "Oh how cute, she says the baby's helping but she's just sleeping aaaawwww" NO. If you've tried to get anything done while watching a baby, you know. A sleeping child is a HUGE help.

I don't know why she looks so angry here lol.

 

Also I FINALLY listed this necklace I made weeks ago! (Which you can check out at my shop: The Silver Cord)  I love this picture of the Bean and me ^_^ And incidentally my mom got me those earrings in Israel. Love'em.

 

That necklace actually taught me a valuable lesson. I had been trying to figure out how to make the cord from a pattern I found, but it made absolutely no sense. I had been all set to give up when I thought, "If I constantly give up, how am I ever going to accomplish anything? How would anyone accomplish anything without a little effort and thought?" So I kept trying, and it turned out to be so much easier than it looked at first. Not only that, it was exactly what I had been looking for when I went in search of that pattern.

Perseverance has been lacking in my life up till now. When I was younger, I would sit and think about doing things. I would plan things out to great detail in my mind, turning them around and seeing every possible outcome. But when it came to actually doing those things, I failed miserably. It was like I had lead on my legs.

But lately I have...energy. There are still days when I get stuck on facebook and waste hours doing nothing. But those days (which are now becoming hours of the day rather than whole days) are becoming fewer and fewer.  Now when I decide to do something (for the most part), I do it. It's a good feeling.

Block partaaaay

I made myself a blocking board!

 That's the finished product. There are two layers of tape, vertical and horizontal, to create a grid I can use in case I need to size something perfectly. (I can't see myself needing to size something "perfectly," but ya know. Just in case.) It says "block party." I'm not as lame as I seem sometimes, I swear.

Just cardboard and tape. Most of the cardboard in my house these days is from boxes of diapers. It was garbage and now it's crafts. Love it. =) (On a side note, I'd MUCH rather be using cloth diapers. But Boyfriend doesn't want poop in the washing machine. =/ I guess I can't blame him. But I VOW, my kid will not be in Huggies forever!)


This here is the middle layer, out of three. The front is just one flat piece. Since I'm going to be sticking pins into this thing repeatedly, I wanted it to be as thick as possible. I could have done four layers, but I thought that was excessive. Plus, I'm lazy. =D

And that's the back! I put it right side out so I wouldn't have to differentiate between the front and the back. And because, well......come on, that baby is adorable, you know it's true ^_^ And that's Callie the cat! She's chillin.


My first blocking project (well, second, but first on the "official" Board of Blocking Wonders) will be a pair of earrings I finished aaaages ago and just haven't gotten around to blocking on the ironing board. That's fine though because this board needed to get made. I always neglected to block things due to the lack of a suitable surface (and aforementioned laziness). And now I have one! (A surface...not laziness. I already had that.) But seeing as how it's past midnight, the earrings are going to have to get pinned down tomorrow.

It's taking me a long time to get my Etsy shop up and running. (I don't even have anything up there right now. Sigh.) But I feel like I've been taking care of things that will make it easier to keep it stocked in the near future. Boyfriend and are I straightening out our finances, and I'm making things and learning skills that I can carry with me, rather than relying on one-time items that may or may not sell. I thought before I was building the foundation to change the way I think and live my life, but that, I think, was inaccurate. Before, I was digging the hole. Now I'm building the foundation. Small steps, small steps. It's all in the details.

Sorry my pictures suck, by the way. Haven't had the chance to pick up batteries for the camera yet, and I'm still stuck using my crappy ancient phone. Oh well.

~~~~~~~~

This was one of three side projects I have going at the moment. A few years ago, I would NEVER have had the motivation to complete even one. Or even start them. They would have been mere thoughts. But lately, I've actually stood up and done the things I want to do. It astounds me sometimes how far I've come in the last year and a half. I would question sometimes if I was headed in the right direction, leaving my job, trying to make something of my Etsy shop and whatnot. But then I look around and I see how far I've come. Where would I be if I wasn't doing what I felt guided to do? Not here.

I have to say, I'm proud of myself. I managed to pull myself up from such a bad place, it's literally like night and day. I always considered myself a "dark" person, even though I knew the light I had. Now, it's the light that wins out, every time.

What really gets me though is that that was a choice. I made the decision to change myself, and then I made the effort, horrendously difficult as it was. I truly believe now, anyone can handle any situation they make the choice to handle. Without the choice, you give up your power, being dragged wherever your life takes you without seeing where you're going, and without knowing if you're in the right place or not. But it's possible to choose to be in a certain place, to choose to have a certain frame of mind. But then doesn't it stand to reason that you can make the choice to be in the wrong place? I'd say so. But you're going to have a hell of a time trying to get there.

There are no "weak" people. There are only those who are blind, and those who make the choice to see. Nothing ever got accomplished with closed eyes. Or a closed mind, for that matter.

Now I'm left wondering, what's the difference between the mind and the inner eye? O_o Or, it feels better to say, what's the relationship between the two?

Mom thoughts =)

Well hello there.

I'm a mom now! Baby Girl was born June 10th, at 11:11pm, after 24 hours of labor. I never anticipated that the longest day of my life so far would go by so quickly.

My little one on the way home from the hospital, at a day and a half old:

And yesterday, at 2 and a half months:

Since I had my awakening, I've run quite often into the concept of love, for myself and for others (OOOBviously). Love for myself was always difficult for me to comprehend. Not sure why. The reflective nature of "love for the self" wasn't easy. I had trouble turning inwards. And now that I'm writing and thinking about this, I realize that it's intimately linked with my difficulty in sticking to a meditation practice. Trouble turning inward. (I just had an "aha" moment when I realized the link between meditation, love for self, and recognizing God. They can all be described as "turning inward." Something so simple can show you so much, and yet it's not so simple sometimes, is it? And yet, it is O_o You're right there, after all. Just see yourself.)

ANYWAY. My point. Since my daughter was born, "Love" has become a concept I am understanding more and more. Yes, it is absolute delight in the totality of this little creature, but it's more than that, more than "delight". It's total acceptance. And yeah, you see these two words thrown around a lot. But that's because they are TRUE. My daughter shits on my hand while I've got her diaper open, I smile at her and clean it up. She won't go to sleep at 3 in the morning and I'm near tears with exhaustion and frustration, I pick her up and can't help but love how warm she is. I'm running late for an appointment because I have to feed my daughter? You can wait, my baby needs to eat. (For context, I HATE being late, no matter what it's for. But for Baby Girl, I'll make the whole world wait and not blink an eye.)

No, I didn't bring you here to sit through a diatribe about how much I love my daughter. (But yeah.....she's pretty great.) The point is, I love my daughter the way God loves me. Completely. Without judgement.

I can't help but think of Jesus when I think of this relationship. He called himself the "Son of God." People assume he meant the literal, biological "son" of God. But, that's not the case at all. He only meant that he was one small part of the whole, created by and reflecting the whole, as a child does his parents. Didn't he also say that we are all children of God? I don't understand why people ignore this.

It's also said that we were created in God's image. Yes, of course, as ENERGY. What a vain, narrow-minded race we are to think God has two eyes and a nose, lol. The patterns of energy that make up our own bodies also make up the whole of the energy of the universe. We reflect that energy, we share it, we ARE it.

Anyway, I've come to believe, or to be honest, to realize, that love is a necessary component of life. Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to live. If I didn't love my daughter, those 3AM wake up calls would go unanswered because I just wouldn't care. Of course, I would MUCH rather sleep than get up again to try to figure out why she's screaming this time. But I love her. So up I get. She would be a filthy, malnourished, terrified little girl if I didn't love her. Pretty dark and scary not to be loved, I'd say. How do you think you'd get along if your mother didn't love you? If your friends didn't love you? If God didn't love you?

On a less fanatical note, there are three things that matter most to me right now; creating things, spirituality, and my daughter. So rather than keeping the three separate, I think they need to be brought together here. They make up my one life, so why keep them separate? =P

I've slacked HARD in the last 2 and a half years trying to get my Etsy shop up and running. Now, I'm actually taking more complete steps to get myself set up there. Slowly but surely. And actually taking it seriously. I don't have anything up there yet, but there are many ideas and several works-in-progress. I figure I got time, right? lol. Life is short but there sure is a lot of it to live ;)

Empty now but a couple pairs of earrings up soon: www.thesilvercord.etsy.com

Busy days

I have been so busy lately that it's hard to keep track of where I am half the time. I don't think I've ever been this busy in my life. But after a lifetime of sitting around doing nothing, it feels good to be handling all the mountains of things I need to handle. It's definitely scary. I feel like I'm not quite getting the rest I need, and I need to stock up on rest before this baby pops, which could be any day now. But life is moving faster than I realize. Tomorrow I have my final driving lesson, Wednesday is my road test (FINALLY getting my license! =D yay!) and Baby Girl is due next week. My shower was on Saturday, and I feel so much better about this baby coming now that we have a few more supplies on hand. We still don't have everything we need. We still need tons of diapers and onesies, and I'm still not entirely certain my body is in any shape to give birth. Signs of labor have been racking up, and while a few telltale signs are still holding off, I can feel my body getting ready for the big moment. Her room isn't completely ready yet and I'll have to spend the next few days doing what I can to get it there. I know it doesn't have to be perfect, but I won't have time for much of anything once she's here, so I'd like to have as much done as possible before then. Everyday I've got something written in my planner, and many more things on my mental list. It's a lot to handle. But it's a good feeling.

In the midst of all the confusion and tension and busyness, I've been strangely calm. I'm not quite sure if I'm just deluding myself that I have less to worry about than I actually do, but my stress has been sort of just a grey outline on the borders of my mind. Definitely there, but skimming the surface. I've actually been facing the things I need to do. Of course, there is much to be done, and with labor right around the corner, I have moments where I wonder if it's even possible for it all to get done in time. But then I think, if it doesn't get done, so what? I'll have my child, and she will be healthy and taken care of, and I'll be way more stressed about the small stuff than she is. And so long as she is ok, that's what matters.

The other day I was thinking, and I just realized how important it will be for me to keep calm even amidst all the chaos, and I saw that I've been managing this, and I saw that this process, of giving birth, of beginning my life, of clearing my mind and my living space and my heart of old baggage, will involve a lot of conflicting attitudes and actions. On the one hand, I don't have the choice right now to stop moving. Life is moving through me (literally) and I have to follow it. But on the other hand, in order to keep up without exhausting myself mentally, I have to relax every chance I get. And suddenly, those chances are slim. Which means that I have to relax while setting myself to other things. It's ok to breathe while my mind is running at a million miles. In fact, it's pretty necessary.

Beginning a solid meditation routine has always been a challenge for me, even though I felt as though I was missing a large part of myself without it. But I realized quite some time ago, sitting and allowing myself to do nothing is in no way fulfilling when doing nothing is all I've ever done. Depression and social anxiety kept me from living my life, and they kept me stuck in my mind, and so stopping to "do nothing" just made me feel stagnant and irritated, like a bed sore. But I realize now how fulfilling that rest is when I've been moving the whole time. I definitely need the rest.

I can also feel myself becoming more sensitive. I asked myself what energy centers I felt were activated when I was in a certain situation, or around a certain person, and I found myself seeing my boyfriend in a whole new light. It's easy to be sensitive to him because we know each other so well. But on the other hand it's easy to take him for granted because I'm so used to him and to his energy. I suppose the middle ground in just to be aware of him and aware of myself, without being distracted by my assumptions of how he feels about what I'm doing/saying. Those assumptions come from myself, even though some of them may be true. My mind latches on to the assumptions and usually blows them out of proportion.

My mother has a tendency to turn every small problem into a crisis. Her energy is frenetic and chaotic and I find myself unable to cope with her much of the time. My brain goes fuzzy and I just get angry, which leads to arguments, which leads to my boyfriend being upset with me because he can feel the negativity I spread in that state, and, as he says, I'm more aware of that energy than she is and I should know better. But I have a lot of trouble keeping my head on straight when she's off on one of her nag fests, or when she's just being completely irrational (a common occurrence) and it's very hard for me to keep my calm. God knows I'm trying my best.

This post is already quite long without a rant about my mother and I am TIRED.

Good night.

Action

When I ask God/the universe/Spirit for help, I get it. When I tell God that I need help, but that I can't handle any more pain (this has been quite a painful journey for me), and beg God to please take it easy on me, the help I get is gentler, and just as effective. When I allow God to guide me in the direction I know I need to go, walking that path is so much easier and less fearful and less painful than resisting the fear, than trying to take the "easy" way out.

This isn't speculation. I can point to specific examples, just in the last few months, weeks even, of asking God for help and receiving it, and in no great length of time. A matter of a day or less, and I'm thrown into a situation that forces me to do what I know I need to do. God responds when called, if you let it. Truly let it.

Severe social anxiety and depression have caused me to stagnate in my life. Action has been a major hurdle for me. Action in making decisions for myself, action in trying to push myself past my fears, action in doing those things, practical, necessary, desired, that I know I ought to do, but am too afraid to do. Action in getting off the couch when my joints and my back are aching and my brain is screaming for release/companionship/stimulation. Action, the smallest and the biggest, has been a challenge.

And yet now, I look back at my multitude of examples, and I see that God responds when called, from deep within you.

God, help me to act.

Just let it flow

I've felt a lot of pain and anger over the last several weeks and months. I've tried to feel and accept it all with love, but I just end up sitting here, wondering why I'm still in pain and wondering why I can't move past my anger, past all this confusion and fear, why I still can't fully feel what is real within myself. But my doctor helped me realize, not only do I over-analyze and over-rationalize (which I already knew, but it's nice to talk about), but by just trying to feel love for myself, and nothing else, I block everything else I feel. Which makes me think, isn't it a good thing to feel love for myself? Yes, of course. But by trying to immediately replace the "bad" thoughts with the "good," I invalidate the bad.

I had been thinking that if I allowed myself to fully feel my anger and my fear and my confusion, it would block the love that I knew was underneath all that. But that's wrong. By allowing myself to fully feel it, I can finally acknowledge it and release it. I keep trying to balance out and fine-tune all the thoughts in my head, all the emotions in my heart. But it's really hard to keep track of things when there's so much confusion, and when I'm really not allowing myself to feel what I'm feeling. It just becomes a frustrating ride of ups and downs that really doesn't get me anywhere. It's the "keeping track of things" that gets me stuck. I get so caught up in my own head, in trying to think about and categorize what I'm feeling, I never allow myself to actually feel it. Even now, my mind is trying to grab hold of the feeling of feeling, to remember it and store it away for the next time I need to feel. But it's only by letting myself feel without restriction that I truly learn how. Knowledge is gained through experience. I've been trying to mentally capture the feeling of jumping off a cliff before I've even taken the first jump.

I just can't do this anymore. It's too much for my tiny brain to handle. There is so much else inside of me that needs to be felt, and my small capacity for thought can't handle the large amount of emotion that's bursting to be seen and felt and heard. I have not been real. I have not been living. I've been trying to love, and trying to live, and trying to feel, but I haven't actually done these things. Do I still have fear? Yeah, maybe. Probably. But I'm also getting fed up with the mental chatter and the excuses. It makes me frustrated and almost disgusted with myself, or at least, with the process my brain has been trying to set up to help me "manage."

I keep feeling like if I don't get the experience down in words, I'll lose it. Part of this comes, I'm sure, from the fact that I don't really have anyone to share these experiences with, so in a way they really do get lost. But, I gotta start somewhere. I gotta stop trying to make things sound all pretty, and just say the words that I have in my mouth. Cuz I usually swallow them, and then they just make my stomach hurt. If that makes any damn sense at all.

The semester is drawing to a close and my baby is due in less than two months. I've been taking driving lessons and my road test is all set (on my due date, which is another issue, but it's happening, which is the important part).

I've been stifled by fear. Lol. It's so funny to me, now, to think I haven't let myself move on with my life. Why? I don't know. I just don't know.

Energy just wants to flow, isn't that right?