Full of Suffering and Overcoming

I am in a place right now where my tired soul is sitting in a dark corner. I am overwhelmed and tired and in pain and bleeding and confused and stuck and lost but also fine and centered and full of wonder and growth and I’m flourishing and thriving all at once. I am good and sad and tired and raw and healing and nourished all at the same time.

In the midst of all the tired that we are there is life and beauty and precious treasure. What a loss it can be when it all becomes too much and in turn we get lost under all the weight. The heaviness feels as if it’s sinking us into some unknown abyss and the sorrows overflowing from too many places to give full attention to. The hope in which we own buckets full can lose its endurance and dry up. The ever present idea in which the world doesn't run on fair gets loud and closer than ever before. The uncomfortable slap in the face that reminds us that what we want is not ever necessarily what we get even if we work for it. Among all the different forms that we can be tired in there is much flowing beauty that we can become indifferent to. 

I am trying to see the light and beautiful moments that happen in my life every single day among all the chaos. Every day there is at least one moment made up of pure light and beauty. I try to not let the weight I carry slow me down. I don’t want my life or situation as difficult it may be to box me up into complete bitter unhappiness. I long to move forward and experience beautiful moments. I want to feel, I mean really feel, those moments. Especially when I'm with good company. The moments of laughter and love and right nows. I want to be a safe place for others too instead of always being so caught up in my own world. I want to experience all the good things that are already in my life and the good things that are happening. I don't want to miss those good moments because I'm to busy focusing on the bad. I don’t want to miss the kind and tender moments life gives to me. I don't want to miss the beauty in my life because oh how bleak it is when I do. I want to be awake to feel moments. I want to be alive, really alive not just a breathing body. This is difficult because so many other things are taking up all my energy and there are times where I don't have anything left of myself to use to be awake and nourish my soul. I am trying to survive and thrive all at once. Most days I do more surviving than thriving. That frustrates me incredibly. I am impatient and the slow progress and small steps in which I thrive in are very frustrating. But I don't want to look back at this time and remember only sad things. I want to remember the beautiful moments more. I want to remember the people who sat with me while I was crying or when I become too numb to say a thing.I don't want to be so tired I miss my life. I want to remember the times I laughed and smiled genuinely despite the pain. I want to remember the bits of healing through the bleeding of myself. I want to feel the light and warmth during this difficult time. I also want to be aware enough to still be a light for others and to be able to create beautiful moments in the middle of my chaos.

I know that the breaking of me can be the beginning of great transformation and growth. I truly believe in using pain as fuel for growth. I recognize that where I am is a great platform to transform. I know that I will look back at this particular time of my life and be grateful for my strength and friends and good meals and belly laughs. I know I will look back and see all the beauty and I am going to wish that I had felt things more deeply. I am trying to do so but right now in the middle of it I am not thankful...I am tired and want this episode to be over already.

Beautiful tender moments are vital for the continuance in my journey. Life can bang and beat and tear you apart. It is never as gentle as we would hope it to be. I don't want to miss those precious moments because they can fuel me to keep going because as much as we hurt and bleed and ache we must continue to keep on. Tired you may be or may become but we must not give up yet. We must not yield to the weight of which each of us carries. We must search for peace. We must not forget that there is so much more to life than pain and suffering. There is beauty and light among it all.

There is a pivotal point in each of our lives I believe at a time in which you become tired of getting beaten and hit and torn apart by life and must make an important decision. We must choose whether we will keep moving forward using it all as fuel for growth all while staying soft and vulnerable or if we will want to chain it all onto our souls to weigh ourselves down and in turn become guarded and hard. I refuse to settle with being a victim just because life has happened to hit really hard. I am choosing not to stay in the hole I dug just for my tired 'ol self. Every day I choose. I choose to keep going. Sometimes it gets so hard I don’t even recognize myself. Sometimes some people look at me and see nothing but sad eyes. I am trying though you see. I have not stopped putting one foot in front of the other and doing the next right thing. 

Lets keep doing that. 

Lets keep crawling out of the hole or caves or corners or whatever 

we put ourselves in. 
Lets keep on.
 Lets continue on our journey. 
Lets keep making the decision to stay fully alive. 
To feel things more deeply.
To feel all those beautiful moments
and to be present enough to also create them.

I have not lost my will to stay fully, completely, beautifully, painfully alive. 

Don't lose your will.

Rise friends, Rise!

Imperfect Bodies

I love how bodies aren't perfect.

I love how they are filled with marks.

Like life’s graffiti wall of art

We stand for something,

We own proof of life

Hands with popping veins and bitten fingernails

Wrinkles and Cracks on skin

Faces with lines and stretches and shadows.

Legs and arms made their own with scars and spots

A bit extra or loose here and there

Stomach and thighs stroked with paint like marks

Knees distinctly sculpted

Sloppy birth marks

Eyes as deep and beautiful as the sea

A nose carrying its own distinct posture

Lips so soft and gentle they’ve become a blush of pink

Life has left its masterpiece on you

Stories stored.

I love it.

I love our imperfect bodies and the stories told on them.

Give Me My Secrets Back!

Sometimes I get so scared that I want all the secrets and heart spilled moments I've ever released into the universe, back. I feel so open and soft, so vulnerable. Sometimes I just want it all back to keep for myself. I’d like to gather it all together and forget that anyone ever saw any of it. "Why did I ever think destroying those walls of mine was ever a good idea?? Stupid. Stupid. Stupid." You see, I get scared too. I get frightened of sharing too much and in consequence being too vulnerable.  I get scared of being wrong when I speak out, which of course happens sometimes. I get scared of being unaware of hurting people and being blind to see important sides of something.  We all live with fears that we never let anyone else know about and well, those are some of mine. 

Even with all the beauty and raw human-ness in which vulnerability brings. I get scared. I know that being vulnerable can bring upon great things. I know that at least one person will connect with whatever it is in which I’m being vulnerable about but I still so often get scared.  I get scared and I yell at the universe to give me all my secrets back.  I jump into a puddle of insecurity.  It gets messy and sometimes some people don’t sit well with what you say and sometimes you get burned. I tend to curl into that dark place in my mind and mutter to myself that I won’t ever open up again because you can get hurt. I jumped and I fell and now I have to get back up again. 

Oh no, I’m gonna need some courage.

The other day in admitting that I was scared to a friend she told me that she gets the same kind of scared too and that even though we are scared we jump and fall anyway. I sat with that and something clicked in my head. I realized that the courage is not in the jumping when scared but in the falling and getting back up. Unlike some people believe we are not brave because we are scared and jump NO we are brave because we jump knowing we can fall and must get back up again. We are brave because we know we will have to try again. The bravery is in the continuance, it’s in the trying again. It’s in the trying! SO I realized that yes I may be vulnerable and may not say the right things at times but I am still trying. I have kept on trying. There is the courage, the bravery in which I am so blind to see during those moments of fear with the world. 

We jump and fall ANYWAYS.

So HAH fear! You have not won like I can so often believe. I am winning because I am still trying. I am brave and loaded with courage because I am continuing even after I get burned, and am wrong. I keep on and continue to try. I am brave because I call out my fear and even though sometimes I may not jump; I am still brave. Admitting you’re scared when no one else is admitting it is BRAVE and full of courage.  Brave can be and look like many things. So yes, I share my heart and sometimes I sit alone and yell at the universe to give it all back but I am still brave because I still try.

Have I said brave and try enough times?? 

I don't think soo because NEVER.

I don't know why the idea of me being wrong is so utterly embarrassing even though I know that everyone is wrong at some point and even daily. Its the perfectionist in me. I am still learning about this whole thing of taking up space even when I am not particularly correct thing. 

I am loved. 

We are loved not because we DO but because we ARE.

I am loved not because I do but because I am, 

How many of us continually get caught up in impressing people and accomplishing things in order to be loved or continue to. How many times do we believe we have to be successful to be loved?? How many times do we believe that we must be successful in order to be worthwhile?? I know I forget and believe that a lot of the time. 

I am scared sometimes of giving too much of myself away and being left with nothing.

Thats not a very smart fear. You want to know why?

Its not smart because every time I give some of myself away I get at least twice as much back. I am shown this countless times and yet I still get scared and yell at the universe. Each time you share your heart you will not be left out to dry because someone will always reach back with a piece of theirs. I believe in that. I believe in vulnerability. I adore it. I love that someone can open themselves up some and this raw beautiful stuff comes out. I love that it is a way of saying I AM HERE and flawed and HUMAN.  I am utterly fascinated by people and their way of being. I love that every single one of us has a big remarkable story to tell. I love that everything that has ever happened to us throughout our lives has shaped and impacted us in some way or form and made us into the ever evolving person we are right now, positive or negative.  We are all so different and alike all at the same time. That is so incredible to me, that each individual is contained with such complex and great stories. 

I will continue to remind myself that my courage is there because I am still trying and that I am loved not because I do but because I am. Maybe I'll even work on to stop yelling at the universe but between you and I thats one I keep to keep myself sane. Sometimes you just need to scream at nothing and everything. You know what I mean? NO? Okay, just me then.

You are loved and you are brave.

Keep on.

-Analaura

"Despite what you may believe you can disappoint people and still be good enough. 

You can make mistakes and still be capable and talented. 

You can let people down and still be worthwhile and deserving of love. 

Everyone has disappointed someone they care about. 

Everyone messes up, lets people down and makes mistakes. 

Not because we're inadequate or fundamentally inept, but because we're imperfect and fundamentally human

 Expecting anything different is setting yourself up for failure"
-Daniell Koepke
Creator of the Internal Acceptance Movement on Tumblr
Check it out!

We are Due.

You are due for great things.

Don’t you hear me?

You are due for great things.

You are brilliant and oh so strong

You are due.

No more I’m not ready yets

No more but I’m still a mess

Who you are right now is able and willing

Time to step away from the safe and into the wild

Into freedom

I am due for living into my greatest self

And moving on from who I’ve been

I am a wonderous creation

And it is time I believe

I, me, myself

am due for great things.

Today, Tomorrow and even after

We are due.