Quote: Bjork

"There are certain emotions in your body that not even your best friend can sympathize with, but you will find the right film or the right book, and it will understand you."

-Bjork

Quote: Rumi

I wonder how many times my heart will have to be broken before it finally opens again.

Quote: J.R.R. Tolkien

“A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities.” 

-J.R.R. Tolkien

It's all I have to bring today (26) by Emily Dickinson

It's all I have to bring today (26) by Emily Dickinson

For the longest time, I couldn't figure out Emily Dickinson's poetry. I would read a poem over and over and get nowhere. The best thing that ModPo class I took did for me was teach me how to read her poems. Now not only do I finally get to enjoy them, I can really relate to many of them. I actually wonder if we might have had quite a few things in common.

Emailing My Future Self

At church last Sunday, they had us do something that I thought was a really great idea. They had us write down what God has done for us in 2013 and what we are still waiting for in 2014. They had us put the list in an envelope addressed to ourselves and they are going to send it to us at the end of 2014.

I love the idea but I didn't have the time I needed to sit down and really think about it. I really wanted to do it with a more thought out list. Then I found EmailFuture.com. It's a site where you can send an email to yourself in the future. So, I wrote a better list of what I want to happen in 2014. I think 2013 has been covered pretty well here so I don't feel like I need to rehash it. I set up the email to be sent to me on December 31, 2014 at 11:45 pm. That is the latest time of day that they allow.

I hope it works. I think it will be so fun to be able to look at that list and compare it to how things really ended up.

My Plan For Growth

Since my guiding word of the year is growth, I decided that I need to come up with a plan to get going in that direction. Of course, I don't know where this is all going to take me but I have a few things I'm doing to start the next part of my journey.

First, I'm trying to get in contact with people involved in the journal therapy certification programs to get some advice on how to gain the necessary experience and background knowledge I need to get into the program. I'm not sure what would count as qualified experience. Hopefully, I will hear back from them and will then begin working on implementing their suggestions. If I don't hear back from them, I will just have to stick with reading books for the background knowledge and looking for volunteer opportunities for the experience. I'll be doing that anyways. In order to get into the program I have to finish my degree as well. I am looking for a job that is stable enough to help me pay for school.

Of course, reclaiming my femininity is still a huge priority for me. It is about taking the way I am changing and feeling on the inside and expressing it on the outside. As long as I continue seeing the same person, who was so lost and confused, in the mirror everyday I will always be stuck. So, I am making regular exercise and daily stretching part of my routine. Having a body that is strong, limber and flexible is part of my definition of feminine. I firmly believe that it is the years of anger, tension, and bitterness that have made my body so stiff and weak. That stuff gets into your bones and hardens every part of you. Since I am slowly releasing it from my heart, I need to release it from my body as well.

Another part of reclaiming my femininity is improving my posture. I mentioned in a comment on my I Want My Femininity Back post, that I realized that my posture showed my past desire to be invisible. Since I no longer feel that way, my posture needs to change. It's not an easy thing to change though. The muscles are ridiculously tight and have already been trained a certain way. The stretching that I am doing is loosening up those incredibly tight muscles and posture exercises are retraining those muscles, hopefully. I want to be careful with this though. I used to know a girl whose posture was so good that she seemed robotic. I do not want that. I want to stand with ease and confidence. I want to walk tall and gracefully. I don't want to sit so straight that it seems unnatural.

In the same comment I just mentioned, I say that my current wardrobe shows my past desire to be invisible as well. It also shows my lack of self-esteem and lack of desire to put any effort into myself. My beauty routine is the same way. So, every month as long as I'm getting a paycheck, I'm going to buy one or two new clothing items to start overhauling my wardrobe. I am going to develop morning and nighttime rituals to better care for my skin, hair, and teeth. My look needs to show that I do care about myself and be an expression of who I really am.

I also intend to start reading more. I used to read everything in sight when I was a child, four and five books at a time. I lost the love for it during high school. Being forced to read books at ridiculous speeds while still trying to have enough time for the rest of my classes, made reading stressful and exasperating. I never really regained my love for reading again. Now is the time. Few things can teach you more than reading. Hopefully, it will improve my writing as well.

I think I should make a vision board. I've never done that before but I've heard so many good things about it. Having my goals right in front of me where I can see them instead of just thinking about them might be helpful.

So, that it my starter plan. I'm sure things will be added and changed as the year goes on but I think I'm headed in the right direction.

Guiding Word Of The Year For 2014

Something I decided to start doing every year is come up with a guiding word for the year. My guiding word for 2013 was action. You can read my post about that here. Since then, I've done very well accomplishing that, if I do say so myself. I decided to pursue journal therapy facilitation, I moved across the country in order to get out of a bad situation and in hopes of more opportunity, I've started exercising regularly, I'm working on my strength and flexibility as a start to reclaiming my femininity, and I've taken a tax class to add to my education and in hopes of a job. Quite a bit of action I would say. So now that the new year is here, it's time for me to come up with a guiding word for 2014.

My guiding word of the year is:
Growth

In 2014, I need to expand on everything I've accomplished in 2013 and make sure that all my efforts don't go to waste. I don't want to end up stalled again. I intend to keep walking this path that I have chosen and to keep getting better.

Dew Drops In Morn

Dew drops in morn
A flower's temporary gem
Dew drops in morn
With dew the petals will adorn
So light will sparkle off of them
Creating their own sweet poem
Dew drops in morn

This poetry form is called a Rondelet. I saw this form over at everyday amazing. You can find out more about this poetry form at D'verse~ Poet's Pub. I wanted to try it, you know I love trying new poetry forms. Anything to get me writing.

I Want My Femininity Back

If you read this blog then you know that I am on a quest, sort of speak, to reclaim the parts of me that were either suppressed or tossed aside. Because of years of emotional abuse among other kinds of abuse, I basically became an empty shell surrounded by a fortress in order to cope. One day I realized that it was no longer keeping me safe, that it had actually buried me alive. So, I went to work tearing down the fortress walls. I am no where near finished with that project but I want to focus more on the empty shell for the moment.

Now that I've been writing again after over a decade of only writing school essays, it has cleared some of the pain and clutter away. I can see much more clearly now and can better assess everything from the deep to the seemingly superficial. Nothing is really superficial when it comes to who you are and how you present it to the world, but I do think some things are more important than others. I've started looking at who I was before the downward spiral began as kind of a guideline, my 6 year old self.

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about femininity. My 6 year old self was very feminine. She was graceful (for a 6 year old), girly, creative, almost always wore dresses, loved looking pretty, and most importantly she reveled in being a girl. I never really stopped being girly but I did stop reveling in being a woman. Don't be confused, I never wanted to be a man. I just haven't enjoyed being a woman the way that I would like to.

So, now what? How does one go about regaining her femininity? I'm still working on a complete answer. However, what really stands out for me at the moment as a huge difference between me now and me at age 6 is my body. I was a gymnast as a child. My body was strong and flexible. I was so proud of the things my body was capable of doing. Now, not so much. So, part of the answer would be to work on getting that back. I think the biggest part of femininity and reveling in being a woman is loving your body and what it can do.

Time to start to seriously workout and stretch. I'm starting with a short work out 3 days a week and I have a stretch routine to do after the workout. I'm looking for a stretch routine that I can do on the days that I don't work out. I'm trying to build the habit first, then I will work on improving it.

It's a start.

Nyctophilia

Who knew there was a name for this?! I love the night and darkness. I sleep better, the darker it is. My best writing happens at night too. Nighttime is when I am most comfortable and most open.