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Just BE


This quote so beautifully sums up my motto for 2017. I really am determined to live this way. Its so easy to do this when you are unemployed which I currently am. It has got me thinking though about how we all actually live our lives. Busy is better and we rush through every second without even noticing what is happening. We never just sit still; we never just breathe; we never just BE. Over the last few days I am taking time to just sit. Not even in meditation. I'm just sitting and appreciating my life as it is right now. A lot of times when life has not gone the way I have wanted, I justify all the things I have done or make silent lists of why I am ok, and DO things like obsessively searching for jobs, doing chores, etc. This time around although I am not working life is exactly as it should be and I am content. This is a HUGE step for me. I'm waking up happy in the mornings. I laze around for a while sipping coffee, petting my cats. I do check my facebook and email and play some games but I also just let myself wake up slowly and think about what I am grateful for. I look for work but I don't let it take over my day. I work out, do yoga, talk to friends, read books, write in my journal, take naps. Its real living - its exactly how I want to be spending my days. You are probably thinking, "I would love my life if every day was like that too!" Well, you don't know me very well then. You don't know how I love to beat myself up   - how I criticize myself like its my job and I'm up for a prestigious award. I went to see a psychic a few weeks ago - I stumbled up on her while I was buying some crystals. The owner of the shop said that he would give me my money back if I wasn't satisfied with the reading. A metaphysical refund..hell yea! Well, she was pretty on point and she told me 3 separate times that I am a perfectionist and don't allow myself to make mistakes. After the 3rd tarot card revealed this, she said, "Wow...I mean you REALLY love to berate yourself huh?" Somehow someone else especially a stranger saying something like this to you has real impact. It has stuck with me and I'm determined to change it  because really who is benefiting from this? Certainly not me. Mistakes happen all the damn time and I have always picked myself up from mine so what is to say I won't again?

Something else I am really determined to do is listen to myself more. The psychic also said that I am very intuitive and need to trust that more in myself. One thing I have written about here and a lot in my journal is how hard a time I have trying to please everyone else. If you really listen to people when you are having a conversation with them, they are giving you advice. Oh, it might be very subtle and it might even just be in their body language, but they are letting you know how they feel about your decisions. I'm sick of this. No one else has to walk in my shoes, no one else has been through my experiences in exactly the way I have. No one else has any right to determine my fate. When I was leaving my job, I heard endless, unsolicited advice about what I should do with my life now. I listen to podcasts when I take the train anywhere and even that I had to stop because its all preachy advice hidden behind "self help" speech. Its all just other people telling you how to live life. What is right for one person is not right for another. Why are people so hung up on one way to do things? I read a lot of articles too and I had to suspend that because they all have titles like, "The best time to do Yoga," "Why you HAVE to meditate every day." Ugh, can't I just do it when I feel like its right for me? Why is everything so preachy these days? I mean some things are indisputable and backed by science. For example, I know that working our 5 days a week will improve my strength, cardio and overall fitness so I do it. I know eating a healthy, balanced diet will give me energy and keep my insides clean. I know that yoga every day has made me very flexible and very strong and more centered so I do it. These are all proven. I have data to back it up. But in terms of what I HAVE to do to live a good life, that is extremely individual for everyone. I am the only one that gets to decide that. If I want to stare at the wall David Puddy style for hours than so be it. Its my prerogative. As long as I am not hurting anyone, why is it anyone elses business how I spend my days? I don't get why people are so judgmental and caught up in what is the right and wrong ways to live?

So, I want to BE. Just look around in nature to see that this is how we are meant to live. Animals don't worry about shit all day - they just are. We are animals too. Life is meant to be enjoyed and spent the way we see fit for ourselves. I want to sit by a running stream and hear the water lap against the rocks, I want to sip coffee while the sun is coming up on a chilly spring morning while there is dew on the grass and a silence that blankets the earth, I want to drink wine with friends and laugh til my sides hurt, I want to read a book until 3 in the morning because I just can't put it down, I want to sit with my parents and hear their stories, I want to play with my cats, I want to spend holidays with my family, I want to keep seeing the Patriots winning superbowls. I want to know that my life is what I made it - that every choice was uniquely mine. I want to be so damn proud of what I did with my time when I lay on my death bed that I cry tears of joy and gratitude.

I am on my way.....

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