Journaling a Letter to Your Heart - Ghost writing

Love is more about us being loving than about other people being lovable.-unknown

Do you truly know what non-agenda's compassion feels like?  Do you know kindness with no judgment or agenda?  Have you ever just looked at someone, not family, and felt incredible love for them?  

There are many people, even strangers, that just warm your heart, right out of the blue, and it is a glorious feeling when it happens.  When I think of this I think of this young First Nations woman.  From the moment I saw her, there was just something seriously beautiful about her.  It was way beyond her beauty, her language, her gestures.  I was suddenly, seriously, beautifully, so drawn to her.  Every week, I see her and every time, the same heart-drawing closeness, I feel.  I see her on facebook and see her posts and can peg how she is feeling that day.  She exhausts herself with service to others, I know that.  I have been benefactor of her giving soul.  I have never told her, I just know she knows that I really truly care for her.  I try to give her positive vibes when I know she has had a heavy duty week of service.  I can sense when she is sad.  I have no explanation for the feeling that she is somehow kin to me, although not really, just in feelings.  I choose to love her but have never told her, have not had too, she feels it.  I feel her.  I look at her and she moves me.  I know little of her, I just know there is something very dear in her.  She moves my heart like a daughter would.  Have you ever had this happen to you?  It is that agape love, I think.

Sometimes the hair on my neck will stand up when I am around someone, or see someone, and I remember that I have been taught to notice what the Medicine Man called "watchers".  The whole of this information is for another post, but just know, if you feel your 'hackles' rise and that prickly uncomfortable feeling around someone, just simply move away and do not look them in the eyes.  So, this is the reverse, absolutely, to agape love...this is someone you should not approach or stay near.  Have you ever felt that about a complete stranger you may pass by?  When you are in tune, you can feel how someone is feeling.  Your inner knowing can repel or draw you near.  This is something your soul knows and it is best to be in tune to that.

A while ago, an acquaintance told of leaving her partner of four years.  She is a bright little sparrow of a beautiful woman.  Her flighty personality told me that she was stressed but I did not ever ask but I wondered.  She rode with me to a meeting and she shared some of what she was going through.  I related, right to the heart, related.   She was leaving the relationship at the end of the year when she has a fairly huge lump sum coming in.  She was planning.  But, what hit me most was that she spoke of her poor choices after leaving a 31 year marriage.  She had made another poor choice and figures she will make another if she did not get it straight.  My heart hurt for her.  When we are open and not focused on our own 'stuff' we have room for those who need us to just listen so they can tell someone, anyone, how confused and hurt she was.  She was desperately in need of some compassion...someone to listen, not judge, but nurture her knowing and support her.  Have you ever had this happen?  Of course, we all have, and it is because, at that moment, our heart is completely open. 
  
Sometimes we have to be love, not just feel it.  Sometimes our love gives us a vision that goes beyond normal interactions with others.  If this is so, then it means that we, too, send of spiritual vibes and even our best-held emotions charge the energy around us.  Love first and foremost, those around us, enough to know that we have to heal ourselves so the energy we send out is positive.  We have enough negative vibes in the world right now.  

Journal a note to yourself (your own heart/soul) , a quote, a secret message, or the like,  in sharpie of any color.  Let it set, then do a wash of color overtop.  The sharpie ink will appear underneath as it dries.  If you want to completely block what you have written, then you can paint over and over.  You can, also, collage over top so the writing is not decipherable.  Releasing any negativity or releasing love from your very heart is moving psychic energy, You can do it,  I have faith in you.  

©Carol Desjarlais 9.26.19

Journaling Cleaning Out the Basement Pests

“The key to happiness - or that even more desired thing, calmness - lies not in always thinking happy thoughts. No. That is impossible. No mind on earth with any kind of intelligence could spend a lifetime enjoying only happy thoughts. They key is in accepting your thoughts, all of them, even the bad ones. Accept thoughts, but don't become them.
Understand, for instance, that having a sad thought, even having a continual succession of sad thoughts, is not the same as being a sad person.”
― Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive

Instead of being full of regrets, it is imperative for mental health, that we begin to acknowledge our shadow self and focus in on making our Present Self one we take kind and compassionate pride in.  Many of us, probably MOST of us see ourselves more in negative light than in the positive light.  

To say we have had reasons not to thrive is probably a misnomer. We have all, certainly, had things of life that have knocked us down.  If we give in to the negatives, we will gain nothing but low self-esteem and we will never be who we were meant to be.  Sometimes we get tired of people verbalizing their weaknesses and their 'not enough' inferences because, all of us are struggling and to hear someone give in to their negatives only makes our load feel heavier.  Sometimes we just have to save ourselves and work on loving our own negatives enough to get past them.  As long as we become saturated with other's woes, we can never really work on our own, or recognize our own positives. 

The Inner voice/EIW language/our private thoughts, always affect how we deal with the world.  Our emotions affect not just our self, but others as we emit what we are feeling in myriads of ways.    What we tell ourselves impacts everything around us, as our energy put out is constantly affecting through ripples upon ripples.  Our inner language shapes more of our thoughts and literally is setting decisions about how we live life.  Happiness has a whole lot to do with success in life and so we need to shut down the language we draw from our past. One can only stand negativity for so long, we know that, yet we do that to ourselves.  We need strength not self-imposed misery.
Denial is not the way to go.  Accepting that we do have reasons to feel negative and then working to change the negative to a lesson and then a lesson learned, is key.  Poor self-esteem equals poor life choices.  At some point, we need to turn the negative thinking to positive thinking, because life is already overbearing and overwhelming in the present.  If we think of all things negatively and throw in a couple of weak positives, we lose self-confidence and once you lose that you tend to hide yourself away in fear others will notice you have a shadow self.  Truly, others do not care, unless they are gossipmongers or hurt people trying to hurt people.  You open yourself up to more and more judgment by others, hurt by others, and more negatives because we draw what we think to us.  

It is a paradox that what we think are our guilts, our sins, our failures, become a force of their own and we do become the result of our own undoing. In fact, we become so deeply into the belief we are more negative than positive that we become stalled in working on our positives.   When we look at why we might do this, it is noted that some of how we think is actually inherited and then set in the first six years of our lives.  (You can Google this...it is eye-opening)This, I think, means we inherited some and then were conditioned beyond that in our interactions as we move away from home life and into kindergarten or first grade and beyond.  

Yes, we experienced a great deal that impacted who we are, how we feel about ourselves, and how we carry on if we do not heal ourselves.  It is not up to anyone else to heal you.  True healing comes from our own inner work.  It is the same old adage...what we work to get, we respect; what is given to us is less respected.  That does not mean, if the issue is huge, and you are incapable of dealing with your own problems, that you should not go somewhere to get help... yes, you should...even a parent, a sibling, a friend who knows you well, and if that fails, then to go to get professional help.  Sometimes we do not realize how devastating this is to Self. 
This is the time to de-pest our basements;  to stop our negative self talk about stuff that is no longer present, although may have some residuals because we have kept them pertinent, and improve our outlook and inner-look of self.  We have heard this before.  I have posted about this before.  

What advice would you give me if I were you?  Learn to encourage yourself the same way you would encourage another.  Be kind to yourself, for goodness sakes.  Let me be kind to myself.  Use safety words within, if you are feeling overwhelmed.  Give yourself, and I will give me, a good talking too.  My dad used to see us whining or sobbing over nothing and say, "Dry up, or I will give you something to cry about!"  Lord that is what my inner voice needs to say to itself.  Somehow we have to talk ourselves into believing the best of ourselves.  

Recognize what you are good at.  Stop that inner voice.  Notice in ways you have been an angel to others.  Notice what you are capable of.  Be your best self by cleaning out your basement.  Take on new challenges and be okay with not getting it, and try the challenge another way.  Be around people who encourage you, inspire you, nurture you.  

If you bump into resistance from others, know those others are not part of your tribe.  Recognize we are our own worst critic.  You are worthy; focus on ways you are worthy; recognize you are enough; submerge yourself in your positives and let the negatives go their way of the past.  There has to be somebody buried down there in that basement.  Find it, recover it, and breathe it back to life.  Let no one put you asunder.  That is their basement.  

DePew, in his workbook, offered this challenge:
First draw a character that expresses the least favorite part of self, what does it eat, what are its habits, where does it live, who are its friends..?
Create what you sense as your basement pest or what you sense as your monster/demon.  But, remember, the monster is not you;  it is your sense of your shadow side. 
Then do a page of your angel within with all your beautiful qualities that far outweigh the pests in the basement.   - DePew

Do that, and then make sure you do that angel beautifully in your page to express who you really are.  You can do it.  I believe in you.

©Carol Desjarlais 9.25.19

Journaling What You Are Living For

"If you want to identify me, ask me...what am I living for, in detail, and ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for." - Thomas Morton

This quote really impacted me.  I was merrily reading it and hit that last part:  "...what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for.." Read it again, yourself.  I do not have a bucket list any more.. I am already in the bucket.  But, they say, that to keep one, helps one have direction in life and gives us something to focus on, to look forward to, and to give one the sense of purpose.  

It really helps to really look at our life and decide what it is we really want, what is attainable, what will make us better people.  I love to do NOT what I am supposed to do, but what, suddenly, comes on and I realize, "Hey, I always wanted to do that!"   I have not, though, let life lead me far.  I have taken charge of where I am headed, and I include detours, because life is like that.  I think it is important to look at what I desire and where it would get us.  Is it a physical thing, an intellectual thing, an emotional thing, or a spiritual thing.  Often we look at physical and emotional without considering the intelligence and spiritual balance of things.  It is a little bit goal-setting, a little bit doing adventurous things, a little bit outrageous things, and a whole lot about thinking today is not our last day. (If one is afraid of no tomorrow.)  Some choose to do things they have always been afraid of doing. 

In order to make a great choice of things to do, if we get the chance, is to really know what makes you happy.  It has nothing to do with what makes someone else's list.  Some would choose new foods they would like to try.  For some, if it attainable, they would like to travel to certain places.  These are people who just want to have fun.  But, beware, sometimes it is not at all what you thought and choose wisely because discontentedness can cause us to choose highly probabilities of disappointment in the end.  What makes us happy says very much about us...are we physical people, intellectual people, emotional people or spiritual people?  Because all things cannot be exactly as we wished they'd be, it is very good to have a plan A,B,C.  If you are one who has had great expectations, then felt let down, most times, then you need to consider each of the things on your list.  You cannot feel what you do not know.

When we were young, most of us circled and folded down pages in a Sears Catalogue:  Our wish list.  I remember my older daughter wishing for a diamond ring...she was 10.    My youngest son wished for an Alf doll.  He got it and kept it into adulthood, and probably has it yet.  We all need something to look forward to, of course, and those kinds of things change as ewe mature, and on into our Elderhood.  I no longer look forward to Christmas... to Thanksgiving, to New Years, to birthdays, to holidays.  People do not gather like they used to and I could wish but that does not even remotely become something that is realistic.  Everyone is too busy, too far, too something.  It seems like we never lose the need to wish for something we did not have, did not get, did not really want but want now.

While we are looking back and wishing things could have been different, things you think you should have gotten/had happen, things we were going to do and did not, things we wanted but did not have..etc., we miss new and exciting things we could do right now.  It is imperative that we stay interested in what is happening right now.    In Meet Joe Black, a Bahamian elder is lying in the hospital dying and she recognizes that Joe is the angel who has come for her, she tells him she is ready because she has gathering all the images in her head that she wanted to.  That is what we need to be doing, noticing the moments rather than spent daydreaming and wishing and mourning what was not, what we had not, etc.  

Live every day at its utmost.  Do not waste time and what you could not have, do, see.  Live every day as if there were not an end of the line.  Let moments of life surprise you, fill you with empowerment, bring you flowers you had not even known you wanted.  

My page is a painting of what I wished I had spent more time on - spirituality- and it is an attainable goal now.  I want to live in a way I attain more grace, dignity and a deepened spirituality.  Can you express a goal?  Do you know what area in your life is left wanting?  Do you find joy and passion and adventure and fulfillment in something?  Express that.  You can, I believe in you!

©Carol Desjarlais 9.24.19

Journaling Fall Of Every Kind

“You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintery light." - Ernest Hemmingway

Autumn's Beautiful Ache

Pumpkin pie air, gingerbread land,
stitch of birds on a line

Ducks, falling like rain on a crowded lake,
geese folding up the sky

Corn husk rattle and squirrel’s brown prattle,
mole harvest tunnels to underbrush den

Leafy last hurrahs and weedy rustle
sound of loon on his leaving

Warmth in a green apple kitchen,
steam window covering goodbye.

©Carol Desjarlais 2007

Fall used to be a favorite, but life changed that.  Fall and a harvest moon August 2015 changed all that for me.  Fall, now, has me so nostalgic and I feel Loss so much more present.  As the weather turns night-chill, I feel myself slipping into the deadfall and watch Mother Nature lose her summer dressing;  the gardens with and turn brown and look sad;  no longer rise to go outside to listen to the summer birds;  listen more closely for our resident toad in the evenings.  Yes, the sense of loss is more poignant. There are different kinds of sadness that can hit at the precipice of Fall.

Some begin to feel anxious, when fall sets in, because they know that there is a sense of loss in Nature.  They miss their summer flings and days of long walks in warm summer nights, the activities of summer, the dances, the busyness of gathering.  For those who do not enjoy winter, there is the anxiousness of having to deal with being shut-in more, being unable to get out and about, and resist anything winter, so the anxiety is all about the future.  The first gold and burnished red leaves begin to dance some can sense a nervousness emerging.

As well, I have met and loved people with SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) at different levels.  SAD is a depression that hits at the same time as late Fall, every year.  It can be debilitating for some.  It affects sleep, energy, and mood and, for those who suffer from it, it can affect relationships and even a sense of worth.  Their joyous summer self becomes more morose, becomes tense, and a sense of joy wings away with the geese.  

Changes of season can also kick off a myriad of behaviors, feelings, and, like vehicles seem to have trouble at change of seasons, so do some of us.  I greatly loved a man who, when moving way up North, had the most incredibly horrible thing happen, The seasonal change set off mid-life paranoid schizophrenia.  He was famous for inventing keyboards for paraplegics and a voice program for those who could not speak.  He was deeply service oriented.  And then his second fall came and took him with it as winter came barging in.  He went from all he was, to all he was not:  A tragedy, truly.  

Settlement In Fall

This orange settlement of fall; soft streets

and children are chattering in playgrounds

muffled in warm sweaters from crisp chill,

light gathered in leafy shadows like aster

bouquet passed over from friend to friend

across a picket fence, and when lake stalls

at lazy stroke of canoeists on their last skim

before mammoth winter rolls in on ancient breath.

This is when we need to be still and listen,

to see how nature takes this wonder of gold

wounding by sharp knife of season, and curls in

on herself to take time to heal in changing times

when god would have all meditate on ways

we weave like weather through our time.

Crackling ashes surround us and we are wrapped

in thought of life’s listless leanings

to have quiet, even if it means a downing

for a time, in order that we might know

blessing from the brow beaten scurry

of harvest gathered and set to wait

for a winter’s hard brush with earth’s famine.

Bless these times of solitude and shush

and brush with death, all take, so reach

of gentle hand of God’s prescribed love

in even these downtimes of dear things, is felt.

Wait and feel being administered to

by things we often forget to pay mind to

and rise, when rising hurts the least, to give gratitude

for miracles that hover on the edge of illness.

©Carol Desjarlais 2007

Another thing that can get a second wind is grief.  It is not just a complicated grief or unresolved grief.  It may be a re-visitation from Grief.  Of course, grief ends up coming in waves, years later, long after you have accepted that a loved one is gone and never to return.  I remember searching for what comes after death because I had heard they go to heaven, but then, someone had corrected me in saying that Christians believe that after death there is a long sleep before a resurrection en masse.  I felt better about accepting the long sleep.  And, I wonder how people started believing in immediate heave.. or hell, of course.  I also do not believe in hell or the devils or St. Peter, etc.  But, whatever it takes for someone to find a sense of peace with a loved one's death is right for them.  

I have known that our feelings are a conscious choice we make.  I concur, so when Fall comes, I have a plan A,B,C to get by what  sadness I feel.  This has been termed "Autumn Anxiety" and is fleeting once we gain control of our emotions.  Autumn is a time we have finished, or are finishing, off our harvesting and busyness.  Our mood can change with our seasonal clothing.  But, as we put aside our summer things, decorations, our outside areas, rake down our garden and flower plots, and finish many things, so do I find I must finish off any leftover 'stuff' that I might to brush away.  Anything we hang on to will be 'cling-ons' longer than another season and I cannot lug more than I already lug on through winter and into my following spring and summer.  Fall is a time I try to de-stress more, get organized for winter; find some new challenges, projects, etc., to get involved in.  I try to find Fall things that I love like making pumpkin and apple pies, doing an October art journal, prepare a dayplanner book for the new years, maybe even find a crochet pattern I might try.  And I spend more time with friends.

We do not know what people are suffering.  It is a quiet sense of loss in so many ways.  Be kind to each other as we do not even have a clue what they might be feeling.  As you work on an art journal page, how could you express your own feelings about Fall?  Mine is all about leaving; the geese flying off without me.  This art piece was done following a tutorial on Van Gogh.  You can do it!

©Carol Desjarlais 9.23.19