Things I am grateful for 2010:

Although 2010 was a tough year, it certainly was an improvement on previous years. The past couple of years have been really really tough and this year although is had periods of great pain, more lessoned were learned than lost. This year I am very grateful for a lot for  things that occured:

I  am grateful for love, more specifically self love, cultivating such love and sharing love with other people.

I am grateful for my fiance. He is incredible and the light of my world .

I am grateful for music. being part of a supportive musical community and making music, listening to music and going to concerts.

I am grateful for Buddha and his teachings. Words and lessons that have traveled thousands of years to get to my ears have helped me tremendously in times of trouble.

I am grateful for my family. My grandparents have been such a strong and positive force in my life over the years. I am also grateful for my parents, because despite their flaws I know they love me deeply and I have learned a lot of lessons from them. I am grateful for my brother and grateful that after all these years we finally get along.

I am grateful for my health. Although I was sick a bunch this year, physically and mentally, I am capable and able to function with relative ease. Every moment I am well and have all my fingers toes and senses is a tremendous blessing.

I am grateful for my home, food on my plate and clothes on my shoulders.

I am grateful for my cats. They are simple awesome. And as I wrote this I heard a frickin’ coyote outside. and I couldnt find them! And they were under the bed. So I’m grateful for scaredy kitties.

I am grateful for living in Massachusetts. Although sometimes I hate it, the odds of being born here’s are one in a billion. Compared to less fortunate places globally, MA is a great place to be.

I am grateful to have a job that I love. In this economy, I am grateful to even have a job,let alone a job where I am respected, paid well and enjoy the company of the people I work for and with.

I am grateful to be in school. It’s such an incredible opportunity to have an education and be able to open more doors.

I am grateful to be near the ocean. I love the ocean and can’t imagine being far away from it.

I am grateful for relatively clean water, air and food. Or atleast grateful for the opinion to obtain these things (barring the air)

I am grateful for dancing. It can cure most ailments.

I am grateful to be alive and exactly where I should be in life.

I am grateful for the friends who have stuck by me through the insanity which was the past few years. I have so much love and respect for you guys.

I am grateful for cute dogs and cute babies, against, an instant cure to most of lifes problems. 

I am grateful to be grateful, to be able to reflect and think of the past with hope for the future.

Wellp,

Tomorrow (or.. today rather) is a pretty important day. 

To make a large picture, I want to be a acupuncturist. To do such, I feel I need to be healthy. Currently, I am not. Mentally, I’m a mess. Physically, I could do a hell of a lot better. Spiritually, I FEEL connected but I lack any spiritual devotion.

So tomorrow (today) I start treatment at BU for anxiety and depression. It’s a pretty massive overhaul, a really intensive 6 week program that pretty much throws you into the lions den and makes to anxious on purpose in order to face fear. I’m scared, really really nervous. Currently, I’m moving around all the furniture in my room and cleaning (something that has apparently become a tradition when a major life event occurs.. breakups, deaths, whatever). I accidently shattered the frame of my art teachers ink print. Uhg. And my feet are full of glass shards, but for some reason, right before a big change, moving everything around is incredibly comforting. Kind of like a brace, moving it all around on my on terms because I know very shortly changes are going to be made completely out of my control.

I deleted my facebook too. Seems like a small thing to do but I was thinking a lot about why is it I feel the need or pull to putwardly and publicly display my life course? From things as important as spiritual progression, to as trivial as what happened at lunch? It makes me feel less alone temporarily, but overall makes me feel more isolated and shut down. I’d rather talk to people I love and tell them physically what is going on in my world. But the problem with that is when everyone else is tuned into the social network, I easily get forgotten. I have a few friends that were never on facebok until recently and when they joined everyones reaction was “OMG I thought you had died!!! I hadnt heard anything in sooo loong…” And it’s true. If you arn’t on social networks, your actions kind of don’t exist. But that sounds extremely appealing right now. And, readers, I know what you’re thinking. I’m saying I don’t want to publicly display my emotions, and I’m currently writing a blog post. But no no, faithful reader, I realize I am the only person who indeed follows my own blog so self displays of introspection are perrrrfectly acceptable.

Hopefully, all my time once devoted to telling people how I feel can be converted into telling myself how I feel, and working through things, and growing, and getting closer to God, and doing laundry, and exercising and baking and getting a dog! And a million other things. I wonder how long it takes people to notice…

In other news, I am very much in love and that has proven extremely wonderful and healing. We had our first “fight”, if you can even call it that, and I was very accustomed to yelling matching but instead I just sat in his lap and we talked. That’s how I’ve always dreamed of resolving things. Caring. Loving. You can still be pissed at someone and love them deeply. They are not exclusive. It’s definitely an adjustment though because I feel so good about us, and everything is seamless. Trying to just accept it at face value and love as hard and as much as I can everyday :)

I’ve been so all over the place lately, it’s really overwhelming. But I’m going to try my best to get the thoughts in my head into words.

I’ve been struggling with this whole anxiety thing for a few years now. It’s hard for me to understand let alone explain to other people the depth of struggle it has involved seeing as most of the struggle is internal. I have a fighting spirit and I thank God for that because recently, I have felt myself slipping. And I’ve asked for help, and everyone around me is supportive but not helpful in the way I need. Again, thats the confusing part I’m functioning and living and all that but I’m vacant from myself most of the time, spending the bulk of my day and night up in my head, talking myself down from panic attacks and worrying about things. No wonder I’m always tired. I’ve been calling therapists, yet few are responding, and even fewer are available  for appointments. I have been working so hard that I have no time to even truly get well anyways. I don’t know where I’m trying to go with this other to say anxiety is a terrible disease. And I’m not one to complain, I’ve been through my fair share of terrible life situations, but I would trade anything just to have a steady heart and a clear mind. 

Today was/is my first day back in acupuncture and lemme tell youuu, it was fantastic. I feel really sedated yet not tired, and that is my favorite feeling in the world. Dr. Zheng was pretty awesome and very strict with me haha, which is something that I was looking for, structure. I had some crazy visuals during meditation and then all I could keep thinking about was Carl Jung’s Red Book and how much I want a copy of it (do they even have english versions? I hope) Here’s one of his painting in there

The Red Book was basically a journal and documented all of Jungs inner most thoughts/ visions/ and dreams. He realized the deeper and deeper he analyzed his own subconscious visions that he was “losing his mind”. Everything is vivid and nonsensical yet serves a purpose in one way or another. I’ve been having CRAZY dreams lately (pulling pencils and pens out of my face!) so maybe I’ll start writing them down/ making insanely awesome drawings.

In other news, Spencer and Heidi are no longer together. Maybe if I line all my windows with enough crystals, I will attract Heidi all the way from L.A… hmmmm….

+

=

(This, obviously, being a visual representation of happiness)

And on and on the journey goes..

Sooo.. I guess I’m a blogger now, haha. Well, the reason I wanted to start a tumblr/ blog/ diary is I realized I was not documenting my life and that kind of sat poorly in my stomach. I have a pretty bad memory and tend to completely forget/ change details of what has happened in the past, and these recreations become just as valid as what really did happen. This makes it very difficult to compare my life to the life I have already lived, which I think is an important part of the learning/growing process. So, documenting my thoughts will help me reflex, learn and remember events and thoughts.

Also, I’m hopping back on “the path” as hard as possible. The path encompasses a lot of things, loosely based on the 8 Fold Path, with other Western thought mixed in. So this blog will also serve as a place to track progress and keep myself accountable. I know what is right and what is wrong for myself, yet sometimes I fall into bad habitual patterns and behaviors simply because I’m not thinking. Maybe writing things down will remind me to be more mindful of my decisions and keep straight on the path instead of getting hammered in the bushes 40 feet right of the path. I did get quite lost for a while, and by that I mean acting out of character, making poor decisions, hurting people simply because I wasn’t thinking, making my body sick, and maybe this was all needed in order to realize that “nope, this is not my life”.

Tomorrow is a good day to start, as is today, as is yesterday. But tomorrow I start acupuncture again. I’m really excited now that I can afford treatment and will be going to the Women’s Center branch of North Shore Medical Center. I need to overhaul my diet but don’t know where to begin so hopefully the doctor will give me guidelines to follow. My body feels better already just thinking about getting acupuncture haha. 

Another thing that makes me feel good by just thinking about him is Thich Nhat Hanh. He was the feature in the most recent issue of Shambhala Sun and that man just radiates warmth. I just want to kiss his bald little head.

“Love is the capacity to take care, to protect, to nourish. If you are not capable of generating that kind of energy toward yourself- if you are not capable of taking care of yourself, of nourishing yourself, of protecting yourself- it is very difficult to take care of another person. In the Buddhist teaching, it’s clear that to love oneself is the foundation of the love of other people. Love is a practice. Love is truly a practice” - Thay

He always seems to come out with new books corresponding with what I’m currently dealing with in life haha. I’m sure he’ll probably read my blog, use my life as a source of his writing, per usual. Well, I love him, and he has helped me most greatly to remain compassionate even when my heart is hurting.

I guess that’s it for now. Tomorrow starts a new leg of the journey, hopefully one of healing and health.