KindandCrazy.com

I have been searching within myself to find my calling in this life for so long. My degree in Professional Writing led me to many places and allowed me to explore myself and the art of writing. While I loved it, and at the time I had every intention of writing stories and poetry for a living, I discovered that being a writer wasn’t for me in the professional sense. Maybe someday I will be a published poet. Maybe someday I will even write a novel, but for now I will enjoy reading and put that dream on the back burner. Since college, while I have searched to find a purpose, I have also focused on love, happiness and learning to grow in my own skin. I have focused on building relationships with all the people I am blessed to know and keeping those relationships alive, but more than anything, I have been focused on my relationship with Gareth. Looking back at our relationship, I can’t even believe where we have been, what we have done, where we are right now, or where we are going together. It has been the most exciting journey and there has just been so much that needed to happen within the boundaries of us as we have been building our life together.

Now, as we move in this onward direction together, I feel it is time for me to continue my search to find my calling. I need to find that something that I can do – that I love doing and that in turn helps me grow and inspires me. It may seem a lot to ask for, but I am not after money. I am after fulfillment. Music has become a passion of mine, and I will never stop loving music or going to see live music. For some time now I have had 2 main veins of fulfillment feeding me. Love and Music. But I am not satisfied anymore with just love and music, even though I will always need them to survive and live a happy life. I think I have finally realized what is missing… Helping others.

I know I have always had a gift for helping others. I have always been an old soul, very understanding and nonjudgmental, and someone people turn to when they need help or advice. I know this about myself. I also know that I have a strong desire or need to directly and knowingly help people. It is what motivates me. One of my best friends is in grad school for psychology. She gave us all (our group of friends) a personality test recently and it labeled me as “The Helper”. I read what it said and it described me perfectly. Helping others is something we all need to do in this life. It is something that is so important for each of us to do on a day-to-day basis in order to spread goodness and joy, to stay happy and fulfilled, to be a good person. A calling does not need to be a profession, but for me – I need my calling to intertwine with my profession because I know that is what will fulfill me and make me happy. And while I struggle in the self-confidence area, I am very confident in my ability to help people and I know that I need a profession which will allow me to do this on a deep level. I feel it in my bones and in my soul. We all help people in many different ways, many different professions, sometimes without even knowing it, and simply by being kind to each other. But what I feel right now is that I need to take a more direct approach to what’s inside me and help people who have been hurt. I know my soul can handle it and I just feel so strongly about it as if one feels strongly about playing a guitar, being a fashion designer, or writing a novel. It is a spark that has ignited and I know I have to follow it.

Taking the personality test in no way motivated me to feel so strongly about this “calling” or what I have been blogging about. It came to me through a different revelation. But it did plant a seed and it did reveal my strengths and weaknesses to me in a way that has never happened before. And honestly, even just thinking about Ellen DeGeneres makes me want to pursue this even more. I have been watching her show every day lately and she brings that feeling out in every single person who watches her.

After saying all that, I do not know in what way I will help others. But I do know it will happen because it is meant to happen and I have never felt anything so strongly in my blood before.

This is stemming from a video that was passed along to me, which you can see at the end of this post. Lately I have been thinking about what to write about in my blogs. Nothing has been coming to me, so I have not been writing. I can say it is because I am so busy with other things, but that’s not the real reason. The reason is that I feel no major conflict in my life, no idea that I am fixated on, nothing insightful within my mind to share with the world. Does my blog need to be insightful, helpful, or interesting? I would like it to be, but I know that just not always going to happen, if ever.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I feel I have nothing to really offer, and I rationalize that by telling myself my life – myself – is perfect. I don’t mean that I am perfect. I mean that the way in which I think of myself is in the best version of myself – who I want to be – that I am happy, and that I have never been happier. There is truth to this in so many ways. I am the happiest I have ever been. But to say that is so general. And I ask myself why I think this, why I am happy. I think it is because I am so comfortable.

In this video, she says we have many ideas of who we are, different versions of ourselves, and we try to be the best idea of the best version of that. She says, “We are too many things to just be the best ideas we have of ourselves.” This brings me to improvement, and that some people think of this life as a constant improvement track. That we should always be striving to be our better or best self, that we should constantly be improving ourselves, and that is how we grow. I hold onto this theory, and I do find truth in it. But I think the point of what she is saying is that in order to improve, to grow, we have to do things we hate. We have to be that horrible version of ourselves, or every version, and we have to use that to grow as well. We have to see ourselves and see others and realize that there are many parts to everyone, that the self you think you know or see really isn’t you at all… it really isn’t anybody. It is just an idea. To really see yourself or someone else takes fear and maybe even pain. To really love someone is the hardest thing in the world for this reason. Because you aren’t just loving a person, you are loving everything that makes up that person. You are loving the worst parts of them, not just the best.

I also like that she says, “Not everybody has to connect with you and you don’t have to connect with everyone all the time.” We are always searching for connections with people, something common, something real to bind us or hold us together. And even though we are all connected, we don’t have to feel that way. Even with the people who are closest to us. We may think it sucks to not feel a connection, or that there is something wrong, but there is nothing wrong and it is better to accept that than to be afraid that there is something wrong.

My favorite part of this entire video is this: “Fuck my rationalizations, they will catch up with me in time, and I’ll be ready for them. But for now I’ll express how I feel, and I’ll discover myself over and over again, and I’ll take responsibility for my scars.”

It is just so beautiful.

I hope this inspires you.

Watching this video has inspired me to become uncomfortable. She says, “Do things that you don’t think are ‘you’ and find yourself in it.” We are always searching for things we can do that are “us”, things we will enjoy and be good at or comfortable in. Or perhaps, we don’t search for anything new, and we stay and live in our comfort. This brings me to hooping. Not just because the girl who posted this video is an awesome hooper, but because hooping is something that is not in my comfort zone. It is something that I have tried, realized it’s going to be extremely difficult to learn, and put down. I want to find myself in hooping, in creating, in dancing, in doing something that isn’t really “me”, but can be “me”, if I want it to be. It doesn’t come naturally to me. Just like being aware of my body and space doesn’t come naturally to me. I want to explore that space and teach myself not only how to hoop, but how to let go, do something that isn’t comfortable, and grow within that.

As John Lennon said, there are only two driving forces: fear and love. I think that now I believe that it is okay to be driven by fear sometimes. Maybe not extremely healthy, but it is okay, because when we experience that fear, and we act on it, and it may seem like a setback, but it really isn’t. It is something beautiful because it is you.

When I ask myself what my biggest fear is, or what am I afraid of… my answer is always the same. I am mostly afraid of not being loved… of being alone. I always have been. I can’t stand the thought. In times when I was alone, unloved, I made horrible decisions and acted out in unhealthy, sometimes even dangerous ways. But I am glad I had those experiences. They have made me who I am in my entirety. And I hold onto them because they are important to me, they are important for me to understand myself and let others understand me.

Fear is something that is so necessary to our journey in this life, but love is what will save us. Love is what will carry us when we are afraid. And when we are able to love ourselves and others, despite fear, we are growing. When we learn that we can replace fear with love, we are growing. That is the improvement track that I want to be on. That is when I feel every part of myself come together.

I found this post I wrote on my old blog, long, long ago; and I decided to make some personal goals for myself again. They are simple, very doable, and will improve my overall health and well-being.

1. Do 3 sets of squats, push-ups and bridges every day.
2. Drink 4 bottles of water every day.
3. Take vitamins every day.
4. Do yoga once-twice a week.
5. Walk outside every day.
6. Never skip breakfast.
7. STOP SMOKING.

My life, once again, is moving forward quickly. I am trying to remain calm and not get stressed or overwhelmed with all of the small details regarding our wedding, which is only 5 months away. I feel like if I follow these goals, and really put my mind to achieving them, I will see improvements in my body and spirit. Yoga has already helped me and Gareth tremendously and we have only been to 3 classes. We love it. Of course the hardest goal to achieve is the smoking one. I know I can do it. I wrote a smoking blog awhile back, and I hate to say it, but I haven’t really progressed any since I wrote that. I still smoke on weekends, especially when I am around people that do it or when I have been drinking. I really do want to quit. My goal was to quit before the wedding, but I want to make a new goal to quit now. I know I can. And at this point, I really want to. That is the only way to quit something… is wanting to. If you really, truly want to, you will.

The main way to achieve most other goals is to get up earlier. Then I won’t be rushed out the door and I can have time to eat breakfast, take my vitamins, etc. The main reason I want to do the work out is because I used to be so tone and in shape when I played sports. I had a good butt, legs and tone shoulders. I was strong. I haven’t had a work out plan in years and even though I eat healthy and go on walks, I wish I wasn’t so weak.

Doing yoga has made me so aware of my body. I shake in almost every pose and I am sore literally everywhere… I am so aware of how weak my muscles really are. There is always room for improvement in everyone’s lives and bodies. I have a long way to go, but I feel motivated to do it now. Maybe I am also so motivated because I have a wedding coming up and I want to look and feel my best on that day. I also want to look and feel good for our week-long honeymoon in Mexico! So while this could be considered a “beauty regimen”, I think it is more of a “feel good/healthy regimen”. Drinking 4 bottle waters, or 9 cups, is good for you IN SO MANY WAYS. In just 10 minutes, it speeds up your metabolism by 30%. It gives your skin a glow and improves the texture of your skin… you get less break-outs. It flushes out all the toxins in your body. It keeps you hydrated and gives you energy, among MANY other reasons. I will probably do things that fall in the category of a beauty regimen, but those will be considered quick fixes, not long term improvement. Such as whitening my teeth, highlighting my hair, getting my nails done, etc.

Anyways, here’s to goals!

“People with clear, written goals, accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than people without them could ever imagine.” – Brian Tracy