Oct 17 2012

Making wishes on a Wednesday

Posted on 17 October 2012 by Kim

It's been awhile since I have "wishcast" but today's prompt is a good one, and an important one. Today's Wishcasting is about expressing yourself, and just what it is that you want to express. There are a lot of things I want to express. My feelings, my soul, my creativity, my story.

But the real question is what do I really need and want to express?

♥ Me. The real me. The wild me. The authentic me. The me I used to be. Not the me that everyone else thinks I should be. Not the boxed up, socially acceptable, conformist me. ♥

That's it. That's what I wish for. It sounds like a small thing, but it isn't. Not for me. The last several days have been a bit of a spiritual journey for me. I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about just this sort of thing. What is it that stopped me from living like that? There are a lot of reasons, a lot of situations and experiences. And they all seem to have come from outside of myself. People telling me just how I am "supposed" to be. How I am "supposed" to feel, to think, to dress, to act. To not go overboard. To not stand out.

I have never been one to give a damn about what people think of me, but at some level, other people's expectations clearly molded me without my realizing it. When did I start to care how other's saw me? I have no idea, because I truly didn't think I did. But I look at the changes from Wild and Free Kim to the Kim of now and it seems to be there. Yes, I sport hot pink hair at the ripe old age of 42 and that makes me stand out on an Army base, especially when one is both a veteran and the wife of a senior NCO. But that's just hair. Being wild and free comes from the heart and soul. Why should I be afraid to let that shine through? That's just BS! And I have no room in my life for that.

So that's my wish… to express ME, the real me. The wild and free me.

Oct 4 2012

From the shadows to the light

Posted on 4 October 2012 by Kim

This is the first card I drew from my new deck of oracle cards, the Oracle of Shadows & Light. And if this card is any indication of how this deck is going to work for me, I am on the right path. I couldn't have picked a more needed card for myself today. The Violet Angel and her message…

Breaking Dawn

No, it isn't a Twilight reference, I promise! The Violet Angel is a sign that something new is on its way, there to help you to discover what that is. She is a sign that a change that you want or need is coming, and that you need to be ready and open to accept it. No matter how lost you feel, the worst is over and change, good change, is on its way to you. It may not be right around the corner, but it is there, coming to you. And when it comes, you will feel reconnected to yourself, your spirit, your spark.

The Violet Angel is about hope. Hope that it won't always be like this. Hope that change is coming. She is about optimism and renewed spirit.

She is exactly what I needed this morning, after a string of bad times. I am truly at a point where I just want to give up. I have been feeling pretty worthless lately, hopeless. It's made me want to to give up on just about everything, including school and my writing. I am in a place where I see no sign of change, no sign that anything will ever be different. Does this card change everything for me? No, not entirely. But it does give me some hope that I didn't have before, a sign that maybe it can be different.

Oct 1 2012

Balancing…

Posted on 1 October 2012 by Kim

I have come to realize that the key to most of the things I need and want is balance. It is something I need, something I want, and something I don't have. I guess you can say I am feeling pretty unbalanced at the moment, all though not in a certifiable way, I assure you! But unbalanced in enough areas of my little world to feel like I am floundering. And the kicker is… I have no idea how to change things.

This isn't a new thing, but something I have been struggling with for several years. There are a lot of things that have led me to where I am now, a lot of sadness and heartache and pain. Some of it happened to me, some of it happened around me. Death, sickness, betrayal, dishonesty… and so on, enough to make me lose faith in myself, life, and in my spirituality. It's not that I can't handle everything on my plate; I can. But at what cost? The cost seems to be me. In the process, I seem to have lost myself. I'm exhausted, mostly mentally and emotionally.

Sometimes I feel like there is just not enough of me to go around. I have a ton on my plate and I feel like I am just scratching the surface with most of it, with nothing left over. Between being a mom, a wife, an aspiring writer, and a full-time student, there is nothing left for me to just BE. And that's the rub. There could be time, the time I very much need to find my zen. The time I need to unwind and relax, create or have some fun. Taking a hallf hour bath once in a blue moon just doesn't count as having down time. But instead I spend my life having to run around everyone else doing everything they haven't. Everyone tells me that if I need help to just ask. I ask, and I get put off until I give up and do it myself. It gets old, constantly nagging. It's just draining, and I guess I feel like I shouldn't have to nag at all. "I was going to do it later." That's the excuse I hear every time, from husband and kids a lot. "<insert thing here> wasn't that big a deal." If it wasn't a big deal, then why couldn't you just help me out and do whatever it is? There is a huge inequality in this house. It is an acknowledged fact in this house. I am a SAHM so some of that is to be expected. But sometimes I have things on my plate that just don't revolve around husband and kids. Sometimes I need support. It isn't even that I need to realign household duties or anything like that. The things I need from them and ask for are small things. But even those small things seem to be too much.

There are things I need, and I know what they are. I need them to take care of their own things and not run to me for every little thing that they are perfectly capable of doing for themselves. Husband and kids alike, they are old enough to have some responsibility of their own. There is no reason that I have to be interrupted every 5 minutes while I am working when they could take the extra couple of minutes and figure it out. We are a family of six. We all live here, use the things in the house. I just don't think it is unreal to ask them to pitch in and help. If you see something that needs to be done, do it. Don't wait to be nagged. No one tells me what to do, when to do it, or how to do it. I just do.

The other thing I need is peace in the house. I don't expect Polyanna happiness all the time. But I expect the back biting and the snottiness with each other to stop. And that includes the husband. He is probably the worst at it. His patience is non-existent and I am sick of it. I spend my life refereeing between him and the kids, and then the kids and each other. I am tired of it. Enough is enough. All of the attitude is enough. I am tired of being talked to like I am crap, by everyone. I am a person, too.

But what do you do when the things you need that could help you need to come from other people? People who don't think and feel like you do, and just plain don't get it? I get the idea of walking away from people who don't add positivity to your life, and I agree with the concept. But the fact is that life really isn't that black and white. Sometimes these people are your family. Your husband/wife, your children. You don't just stand up and walk away from them. It's not that they are evil or negative people; they just don't understand or think the same way. So how do you work with that? I don't know and I wish I did.

I am too many things to too many people and most of the time, I am not one of those people. I am the one everyone goes to when they are mad, sad, or need something. But when the roles are reversed, I am made to feel like a burden. Family, friends, it's the same thing. Sometimes I try to bring it up, tell them how I feel. The last time I did that, I got eye rolls and snorts. There was no arguing, just a conversation, not even on the heels of an argument. That hurt, that I was opening myself up and my feelings meant that little. No one has time for me, but I am always expected to have time. I am tired of feeling not valued.

No one really ever stops to think about how much I have on my plate. I describe this like a pie. I am the pie plate and each one of them is a slice of pie. Each slice has its own wants, needs, and demands of me. There are 5 slices in that pie plate. Not 6, 5. There isn't enough of me left over to have my own slice. My needs are somewhere well below those of everyone else and no even questions the fairness of that. Nobody sees that I am only one person with 5 people in a constant state of demand. They are each so wrapped up in their own world and lives and they forget that I, too, may have a life. They make promises, over and over again, when I bring this up but nothing ever changes.

That's what happened this time, too. We moved, a fresh start. I sat them own before we left and explained what I needed,w hat I expected. I got every promise in the world about how these things would be different. Nothing is different. It is the same stuff, different geographical location. I believed, even when there was no reason to. And I have fallen hard with the realization that nothing has changed. I am still nothing.

I have been thinking a lot about this lately, with less than pleasant paths of thought. Some of it is resentment, resentment that I ask and can't get what I need from the very people who I do so much for and who are supposed to love me. That led me down another path of thought, one that hurt my heart and my soul. I suddenly realized that there is a pattern in my life, and not a good one. I realized that anyone and everyone I have ever cared about cared about me far less than I cared about them. That's a sobering thought, and one that comes from a lifetime of evidence, not a pity party. I am not talking only about romantic relationships, but all relationships. Friends, family, significant others. It's the way it has always been. How do you work with that, reconcile yourself with that? How do you make things better when this is the way it is?

Aug 10 2012

Dealing with the bad stuff & the wisdom of oracles…

Posted on 10 August 2012 by Kim

I have been thinking a lot about the questions I asked of the world in my post last night. I wanted answers, answers on where the line was. I finally realized that, no matter how much I want neat and clean answers, there aren't any. Because life isn't always neat and clean. And trying to avoid negativity altogether can be just as unhealthy as wallowing in it. And, in that, is where at least some of my answers lie.

Over the last several years, I have had more than my fair share of the negative to the point where I am practically obsessed with avoiding it. But that is the wrong path to follow, too. I have been on this kick for serenity, love, and happiness… to the point that I am practically allergic to even the thought of or potential for negativity and drama. But the fact is life isn't always serene, full of love, and joyously happy. And, really, would we be able to appreciate those things if the dark weren't there to compare them to? With light comes dark. With happiness comes sadness. With peacefulness comes chaos. I realized that you really can't avoid negativity. In truth, trying to can actually make it worse. True, you may avoid manifesting it outside yourself, ,but keeping it to yourself is just as bad, if not worse. Inside, trying to ignore it, just fills you with regret, hurt, anger, and resentment. It creates even more because negativity breeds negativity. You have to give yourself permission to feel, both the good and the bad. And somewhere along the lline, I have gotten in the habit of forgetting that.

The key, I think, is in how you handle the bad stuff. You have to acknowledge it and deal with it or it will just continue to eat at you. But it almost feels like I am cheating on myself and my quest to live more positively to give in to the anger. One of my spiritual gurus, Dominee of Blessing Manifesting, has written a series of 4 e-books called Sacred Journey Through the Seasons. The idea behind the books is fascinating, using the themes and wisdom of each season and applying them to your life. I am reading the summer one right now and it is full of insight and ideas. One of the sections is on emotional self-care, and there was a passage that couldn't possibly be more on point for what I am dealing with right now. In it, she points out that the key to letting go of anger is to hold on to it. Now, that sounds totally contradictory at first, but it isn't at all. As she says, you can't let go of anything unless you are holding it in the first place. Ignoring it and not acknowledging isn't the same thing as "letting it go" because you haven't really dealt with it. And it will keep coming back, becoming worse every time. You have to hold onto it, accept it, do what you need to do about it, and then, and only then, let it go. Without doing those things, it will never really "let go" of you.

One of the other things that Dominee does is oracle readings, some with oracle decks and others with tarot decks. You can choose one of eight decks, each of which she explains on her site. She also offers you a choice of reading styles, from one to five card pulls. She also has the option for you to ask a specific question or to state a specific intention for the reading. I recently ordered a three-card reading with the Oracle of Shadows and Light, with a question of my own. I got the reading in my e-mail this morning and was stunned. The way she presents it to you is pretty intense and unlike any others I have done. She creates a beautifully done PDF for you, containing everything you need to know about your reading. She includes a picture of each card and explains its meaning and how it could apply to you. At the end of the cards, she provides a conclusion that she has drawn from your reading. And after that, like a bonus gift, she gave me a series of five journal prompts (and the space to write them if I printed it out) for each of the three cards. The questions are all designed to make you explore the meanings and how they may apply to you. But the most stunning part of it was how completely accurate each and every card pulled was for me. Just the meaning of the cards, even without Dominee's interpretations, were a total representation of who I am right now, what I am feeling, and of the questions I have for myself. And Dominee? Her intuitiveness and spirituality shine through the reading. She has a beautiful way about her and it shows in this. She can bring into words the very things that I am struggling with and make the confusing suddenly clear. And I love, love, love that she doesn't sugar coat and try to make the reading all lightness and fluffiness. It is real, sometimes raw, and honest. And that makes me trust her even more.

Jul 31 2012

Unraveling the Knots

Posted on 31 July 2012 by Kim

“You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, know when to run.” -From The Gambler by Kenny Rogers

Yesterday, I wrote about boundaries, particularly those in friendships. As I said yesterday, this has been something that has been an issue for me for a long time. Even after I posted my blog about it, I kept thinking about it. And I realized that I barely touched on the issues that boundaries have caused me in my life. Not just with friendships, but with family and romantic relationships, too. I realized, too, that one of the reasons that I have such a hard time enforcing boundaries is because I somehow came to believe that, no matter what, you just aren't supposed to give up on a person. But, in reality, Kenny has it right. I am not saying that one should run at the first sign of trouble. Not giving up is great… within reason. But sometimes there comes a point when holding on becomes destructive, for yourself and maybe even the other person. That's when you have to question why you are still maintaining that relationship, whatever kind it may be. There are a lot of reasons that someone holds on, but the important thing is that the cost of staying is never more than you should be willing to pay. And if the cost is too high, that's when it is time to fold, to lay your cards down, and walk away.

Easier said than done sometimes. There are probably a million reasons why I came to think that you never give up and walk away, too many to sort out in a single blog post. But the helpful thing is that it gave me a place to start exploring.

That's the thing about this whole self-discovery kick I am on. It forces you to think about and to deal with things that you have either pushed aside or just not taken the time with. It also has driven home just how interconnected the different parts of your life really are, how much one affects the other. My boundary issues probably have a lot to do with self-esteem, which has come to be what it is because of a string of varied experiences. Those experiences have altered my thinking, my ability to trust, and my ability to be open with others. And that is a really simplified view of it. It is like your life is a ball of yarn. One that has been pushed and pulled about, through good times and bad, and what you are left with is a tangled mess. But the plus side is that there is hope. Those knots can be unraveled.

I know in my heart and soul when and where some of those knots were caused. Some of those knots are easier to talk about than others for a whole lot of reasons. Some are deeply personal. Some involve other people. Those are the ones that will be the hardest to explore. My best "figuring things out" comes through writing and I can't always write freely about parts of my life, as much as I may want to. But somehow, I have to figure those knots out and unravel them. The past may be in the past, but it will follow you unless and until you learn the lessons and gain the wisdom that you need to. And I have lessons to be learned and wisdom to gain.

I have to say, while parts of Project Kim are sad and hard to reconnect with, it feels good, too. So worth it to be free from it!