Life As Art: The Process + the Piece

I like a lot of different blogs, but lately I've enjoyed bloggers who write honest, raw truths. Everyday stuff. Secrets and dreams.

It's important to remember that life doesn't have to be perfect - it can't be. Our homes aren't whitewashed and picture perfect. My bed's unmade and there's probably dust on the counter and dishes need to be put away.

Every meal we make doesn't have to be documented on Instagram.

Every celebration doesn't have to be watched behind a phone camera.

Life isn't a series of highlights and that's okay. It's okay if people see the messy side.

I live a pretty great life; I don't have to get up and go to work for someone else. I live on an island where it's always summer and I can go to the beach in December. I have a husband who loves me to pieces and makes me amazing dinners. I have an ocean view and a king-sized bed. I do the work I love.

It's all quite lovely, yes, but there's the messy side too. Sometimes the power goes out multiple times a day. I don't make enough money from writing to sustain myself. I'm thousands of miles away from family. Western conveniences aren't always convenient (good luck trying to find certain things).

But that's life.

I think people are afraid to present real life to the online world in the fear that others might look down on them. Just remember this - nobody has it together!! Even the most easy breezy lives have some dirt on them. There's hard work and play and love and anger and beauty and ugly.

Pull the curtain aside. Let us see life as it is. That's beautiful too.

Listening to Spirit

I feel like my spirit's trying to tell me something - that I'm not quite in alignment with God and that's why things are stagnant. Maybe getting in alignment means enjoying the freedom I have and connecting with my true self. Not the self that wants to make money and be a somebody, but the self that writes because she can't think of anything she'd rather be doing.

That's all I ever dreamed about and now I have it. I have the space and the freedom to write all day if I wanted. I wouldn't trade my situation for more clothes or regular Starbuck's trips or a high-paying job that I hate. I have everything I need in abundance. Even if I had $0 in my bank account, I'd still have everything I need.

My ego says I have to be a leader, people have to like me and spread my message. I can't be the girl who throws a party and no one shows up. But spirit says I don't have to be on top; I can go to someone else's party, still have loads of fun and help people there.

Holding it Loosely

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Alan Watt says we have to hold our writing loosely. I'm trying to hold it all loosely: words, blogging, business, creating, health, life. It's the only way to accomplish anything, I think. When we get obsessed, everything stiffens, grips. It's a feeling of desperation. 

I started this blog with no intention of promoting it all over the place or writing posts that go viral or learning techniques to monetize or incorporating SEO. I didn't want to feel pressured to teach something or show up on a certain day or write to the masses. If someone shows up and reads these words, I'm grateful, no doubt, but I don't want this to be another business in the back of my mind. How can I make money off this? kind of thing. 

I just want to show up and write. Probably about spirituality, maybe about writing, maybe about other things. That's the beauty of holding it loosely. 

My anxiety's been high over the past three days and I have no idea why. Nothing's changed, I'm taking my medication, but I had a panic attack two days ago - the first one since I started taking medicine again. My chest hurt, my breath all over the place. I knew deep down I wasn't having a heart attack or that my lung had collapsed, but there was still that little piece of darkness slithering inside me saying, "You're going to die." I've dealt with panic attacks for 13 years and they never get easier. I can do this or that to prevent them from blowing completely out of proportion, but they're never easy. Three days later I feel like I can't take in enough oxygen. My ribs hurt. The place where the first chest tube was inserted pricks with pain every now and then. Scar tissue? Damaged nerves? I don't know, but it doesn't help the anxiety.

This week I want to practice yoga and meditate and heal whatever anxious energy is built up in my body. I want to read and journal and work on my novel. I want to put my heart and soul into the e-course I'm creating.

I want to hold it all loosely.

Jesus is the Original Hippie

Photo Source: Astrogems

I like something my friend said about Jesus: that he was a rule breaker; he hung out with crooks and prostitutes and gypsy souls and everyday people; he preached peace, love, and happiness, but he also stood up for what he believed in; he wasn't impressed with titles and outward appearances and he wasn't bent on impressing people; he made a lot of enemies, but he made a lot of friends too. He was a real rebel with a cause. What was central for him was love. Faith and love. 

That's all he asks of us. It's that simple, really. There's no beating down heaven's door with good works and moral striving. There's no trying to please God by following rules and traditions and being the best spiritual person because he's already pleased. We can have our scars and our pain and our anger - it makes no difference to him. He sees the divinity within us. 

There is no, "As long as God is pleased," or "As long as you're making God happy." There's no freedom in that and God provides spiritual freedom through love. 

That's what I struggled with for so long. Am I doing it right? Am I pleasing God? 

"My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not 'mine' but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Galatians 2: 19-21

"For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amount to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love." Galatians 5: 6

As it's been said before, love is all there is. We only have to show up and love. 

And I love these beautiful words from Paul at the end of Galatians:

♥ Live creatively, friends.

♥ Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed.

♥ Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. 

♥ Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.

♥ I have been crucified in relation to the world, set free from the stifling atmosphere of pleasing others and fitting into the little patterns that they dictate...It is not what you and I do. It is what God is doing, and he is creating something totally new, a free life!

Live free, live creatively, live love.

Ram Dass Quotes to Inspire Your Soul

Photo by Dyaa Eldin 

I don't know why it took me so long to discover Ram Dass, but now that I have, I can't get enough of his wisdom. Here, a selection of quotes from his book Polishing the Mirror. 

Part of the process of awakening is recognizing that the realities we thought were absolute are only relative. All you have to do is shift from one reality to another one, and your attachment to what you thought was real starts to collapse. Once the seed of awakening sprouts in you, there's no choice - there's no turning back.

Relax, be light, dance through it all, trusting, quieting, flowing.

Photo by Alexander Shustov

Your own leap - your leap into life, into death, into the next moment, into freedom - comes from giving up the model of who you think you are. 

Like a skillful gardener, you create a space for people to grow when they're ready to grow. 

It's in everyday things that the miraculous happens. If we practice being here now, we develop the sensitivity to perceive and appreciate the daily miracles of our lives.

Photo by Coley Christine Catalano

The art of life is to stay W I D E open and be vulnerable, yet at the same time to sit with the mystery and the awe and with the unbearable pain - to just be with it all.

Free Spirit

Ego says, "Once everything falls into place, I'll feel peace." Spirit says, "Find your peace, and then everything will fall into place." ~Marianne Williamson

Free Spirit Print by The Love Shop

I wrote this note in my journal yesterday:

I never really thought living freely in the spirit (true freedom) could bring happiness. I'm still bogged down by ego things, wants, but when you feel Spirit, the fullness of it, there is nothing else. It's like the whole world dissolves around you and you are just pure soul bliss. No wants, no needs, no thoughts.

Until now I had never felt pure spirit freedom - the kind prophets talked about when they said God would provide a peace beyond understanding.

How can one be at peace within the world? There are so many wants and needs. I need this. I want to be successful. I must have that to feel this. 

I thought, how can anyone just feel love and be happy with that? But I felt it yesterday and a few days before. I felt wrapped in pure love and I know it sounds all hippie dippy, but to me, it was what spiritual freedom truly feels like. It was happiness and peace beyond my understanding. Worldly stuff, thoughts, emotions fizzled out. It was like being in meditation with eyes open.

So yes, connecting with Spirit, such a simple thing, feels so much better than connecting with the outside world. Everything I need or could possibly want is already within. 

Pure Love

Yoga Art Watercolor Print by Lindsay Satchell

When I just let things go - those hurts, those offenses, those disappointments - and sit in silence and breathe and dive into what really matter, my heart fills with love and I forget what hurt me or who let me down.

And you know what the greatest thing is? When you find yourself in the place you are and you’re smiling and breathing without effort and your mind drifts like water over what is instead of what isn’t. And it’s when you’re perfectly content with this moment and you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

I always want to be in that moment of pure love - love flowing in and out. Love so full that it must pour out, even if I’m just sitting at my desk and sending it out in energetic waves. Even if I just hug my husband and my dog. Pure love. Pure love.

Sometimes it’s too much. You’ll feel it when you’re one with the Beloved because all this love comes pouring in and light surrounds you and you see your own divinity. You’ll finally see how much you’re loved and that it’s all that matters. When you have that feeling it’s all that matters.