Tag Archive | creativity

Last night I had the strangest dream…{for real though 🤣 total cray cray 😜}

Nov29

Pretty in pink today! I’m all pink, I even have a pretty pink bra/panties/socks/nail polish(it’s chipped though lol)/mask….lol 💕

Ain’t nothin’ gonna to break my stride
Nobody gonna slow me down, oh no
I got to keep on moving
Ain’t nothin’ gonna break my stride
I’m running and I won’t touch ground
Oh no, I got to keep on moving
You’re on the road and now you pray it lasts
The road behind was rocky
But now you’re feeling cocky
You look at me and you see your past
Is that the reason why you’re runnin’ so fast?
And she said
Ain’t nothin’ gonna break my stride
Nobody gonna slow me down, oh no
I got to keep on moving
Ain’t nothin’ gonna break my stride
I’m running and I won’t touch ground
Oh no, I got to keep on moving 🖤


Trigger warning ⚠️: Mention of depression and s*icidal contemplation, may be disturbing or triggering to some, may be slightly graphic details

This post was meant for 11/28/2022 It’s after 12:00am now so the date changed.


Last night I had the STRANGEST dream/experience. Actually, early this morning. It was BIZARRE! I think it may have been mild/partial sleep paralysis, which happens sometimes when I’m depressed, ever since I was young. Usually my sleep paralysis when it does occur (which is not often and even less the older I get), is severe and extremely unpleasant. This wasn’t but was certainly strange. It was actually beautiful and inspiring and just so weird! Usually when I’m experiencing sleep paralysis, I try hard to get myself up and experience a sense of panic and being deeply disturbed and terrified. With this, I was accepting and not trying to force myself awake.

First I will mention for some context that I have a tooth infection that I have had for months now(I’m embarrassed to admit this but over half a year, actually). A few years ago, I cracked my tooth flossing(I have very soft teeth). A few years later (now), that break is infected. I work seven days, morning through evening, sometimes lighter weekends, and we are understaffed so I been doing home remedies and putting it off. My boss doesn’t want to lose clients, and I’m basically the only worker now. We have a few people helping out, but what they do is very limited. I’m a full worker. He said me taking off when we’re so busy would be disastrous for his business. So I been trying to hold off as long as I can. I warned him that it’s life threatening and I can succumb any day(he said ugh! I’ll lose so many clients! I can’t afford that! Just try to stay alive! 😆). Months ago my whole face was swelled up, and I was in agony. I got it under control and swelling down, but cannot get the infection gone. A couple nights I walked myself to an emergency room when it was flaring worse but decided nah I’m not sitting in there for 12 or more hours and don’t want to overwhelm our healthcare workers any more than they already are. Last thing they need is another dental patient running there when they have so many other patients needing them. I just can’t. So I left and got it under control again. One day, at the end of October, I woke up at 3:00am feeling as if it was spreading. I got out of bed and walked to an emergency room then decided I couldn’t stay because I was taking care of someone’s dog and couldn’t leave him alone so walked to cvs instead for some first aid stuff. It helped a bit. I thought I was dying that morning. I had pain & mild flu like symptoms (wasn’t this virus). I was a regular blood donor for years and haven’t been able to donate in so long because of this.

Recently I was very very sick, as sick as I have ever been in this life, and I seriously never get sick. I couldn’t even get out of bed. I had to tell my boss I literally couldn’t work. This is unheard of. In the six years I worked here, I never ever took hours off for being sick. I did work that day, all day, but got too sick by the evening to do my evening work. I thought it was my infection making me sick, turns out, it was just some virus(I wear a mask and don’t go near anyone, don’t work with humans). But being sick like that showed me what can happen but worse if I succumb to my infection. I NEVER get sick like this and it was like seeing another side of myself I did not know. It was so uncharacteristic of me. I am healthy and energetic as can be, walking 10 and more hours a day. I never even get tired. I never just lay around in bed, I’m either out walking or dancing around my room blasting Oldies. My body feels so healthy it’s palpable, the feeling of health I experience each day. And I am very conscious of how healthy and full of endless energy I am/feel.
Any physical sickness/cut/injury I get usually heals in a day and doesn’t take me down. This took me down for days. I couldn’t even stand, and I had to work, but had to keep stopping places to rest. So this was so so unusual and I was taken aback. It was like a wake up call. I don’t want to get sick like that but worse with sepsis, which untreated tooth infections lead to.

Also, I have been struggling with s*icidal depression off and on because of lack of close true friendships for a few years now. This gets me to not care as much about myself, feeling I’m not worthy and my own life doesn’t matter anyway. It’s not a philosophy I hold; it’s the depression. It triggers depression then depression tells me I’m a worthless loser with no friends and no purpose and no accomplishments in life…And it just weakens my will to survive. Recently, a fifteen/sixteen year friendship of mine that used to be close officially ended like Facebook unfriended ended lol That’s how we make it official these days. 😆 I went to unfriend him and lo & behold! He already unfriended me(so I went a step further and blocked his account 😆 good to know we still think alike!)! I guess it wasn’t very surprising. We have been drifting apart for years (on his part) and resentment was building for a while, on my part and apparently on his part too since he saw reason for unfriending. And we were inseparable for years. Even whenever he would get a new boyfriend, he wanted to spend every second with me. He would invite me on dates with them, even on their valentine’s day celebrations. We met at a dance and danced all night and that was it, we were bff’s. He even included me in family only events shortly after meeting each other. He came to visit me everyday during my psychiatric hospital stays for my depression. He became very unhappy with his own life through the years and began acting differently in unhealthy ways. Recently he began showing signs of a midlife crisis. He also has severe depression. I held out hope he would change and go back to being himself, but he wouldn’t. His behavior became toxic to me. It would trigger my depression or make it worse. This unfriending doesn’t help my depression, but I was already emotionally done with him (after so much turmoil over the loss of closeness through the years and having no other close friends – we had mutual friends, but we drifted apart too – we were mostly all friends through him, that’s the problem when one person holds a group together) so it’s not the biggest blow.

Depression makes me very physically ill and fatigued when it’s to a certain point, but I still feel a sense of ingrained physical health. I want to keep it this way.

I finally made a dentist appointment a while ago, but there was nothing available til around a month away. So I can’t get help til mid December. I have no dental insurance so found a place where they give us discounts if we’re poor lol The infection seems to have spread into my sinuses, and my nose has been gushing blood for days on the side the infection is on. But there isn’t a thing I can do about it. Dentists and hospitals are overwhelmed and backed up. So I’m just here waiting to get sepsis and die or for my healthy body to hold me over til mid December. I am extremely healthy. I have a wicked immune system. That’s why I’m still alive. I looked it up, and basically I should have been dead months ago. lol I decided to stop neglecting/abusing my body in certain ways I have been, I’m going to get it the help it needs. It’s strong and beautiful and carries me and keeps me alive. It kept me alive much longer than it should have. I’m going to pay it back with kindness and basic needs.

So this is what happened early this morning.

I woke up, and it was too early for work. So I rolled over and fell back asleep. What felt like only a few seconds later, I woke up standing in the bathroom in my house walking to the toilet to pee. lol I had this general confused feeling like how did I wake up standing in the bathroom. And who wakes up standing? Suddenly I peed my pants a little bit before making it to the toilet right in front of me. lol (I recently read a funny post by a mom who has incontinence after giving birth to three babies, and she peed when she laughed and yelled to her husband “I just peed my pants, this is mom life!” and he burst out laughing at her, and they fell over laughing hysterically together. lol She posted a picture of them laughing together. I thought this was funny and cute but was thinking no thanks I’m glad I never had kids! I don’t want to pee my pants whenever I laugh{and I laugh A LOT, like full on belly laughs}! Not that it’s the worst thing and is very common in assigned female at birth people, particularly those who give birth, but I would prefer not to lol I would be peeing all day!)

So then I sat on the toilet to pee the rest lol I was concerned about the incontinence thinking why would this suddenly happen, but even more concerned about the sleepwalking. I sleepwalked my way into the bathroom which made no sense. I never sleepwalk! I was thinking so is this going to keep happening now, the incontinence and the sleepwalking? The incontinence I can handle, but the sleepwalking just isn’t ok! I also noticed I was wearing blue jeans as I was pulling them down. I fell asleep in soft blue pj’s. I don’t sleep in uncomfortable clothes. So that was off. Did I get changed in my sleep too? I was still wearing my red pj shirt though. Just the soft pj pants turned to blue denim ones.

After peeing (can’t remember if I washed my hands or not – I would in reality though 😆), I was walking out of the bathroom back to my bed and collapsed to the floor in the bathroom doorway. Something was pulling me down so hard beyond my control. Half of my body was in the bathroom still and the other half (my upper half) was in the hallway. (The bathroom in my house is in my bedroom! no hallway! It wasn’t my actual house even though it was supposed to be, but I did not realize when it was happening! For real I live in one of those super small houses with only one bathroom that happens to be in a bedroom where everyone has to walk through that bedroom to get to the restroom, and it’s in my bedroom, my sister did not want everyone going in and out of her bedroom lol This house was large) I wondered why I was collapsing. It was happening in slow motion. I couldn’t stop it. Then I realized I was dying. At first I wondered if I was dying then it hit me that I was literally straight up dying right there half in the bathroom, half in the hallway. It was not painful, and I did not feel sickly at all, could just feel the life slowly draining out of me. I remember thinking so this is what it is to die. And it’s my turn here & now. I felt helpless, powerless, but not really in a negative way. I just wasn’t attaching a negative perspective to it like most probably would. It was a powerful feeling. Not pleasant but can’t say it was fully unpleasant, almost neutral but more on the unpleasant side if it were a scale that was slightly tipped to one side or the other. I was intrigued. As I lay there dying, I was racking my brain trying to understand why. It made no sense. I am so healthy, so energetic, so physically fit (not fit like I work out level fit, but physically active enough), how could this be??? There was some anxiety at the thought of dying since it was a new to me experience and there was some uncertainty about what it would be like.

But my curiosity was more prominent than my fear. And I had a faint feeling of this is too bad that I’m dying and felt like I may be on my way to experiencing full-blown fear, I felt panic potentially arising, but more so I had a feeling of it is what it is, if I have to go now, I do, but why?? My age isn’t quite old enough just yet for my body to shut down because of age. Then it hit me. Oh, sh!t, that’s right! The infection is finally taking me out. I thought of my mom and how she wouldn’t be happy as she has been begging me all year to get it treated now. She said f your job and get taken care of. lol She said she can’t believe someone can choose to go this long with an untreated infection. She keeps asking me aren’t you scared?! lol I’m not. She tried getting me to get antibiotics off family members who had them, but I do not take illicit drugs.

I felt something non physical leaving my physical body as I laid there on the bathroom floor. It was like two of me, the physical body I am so familiar with, and a “spirit” me (I don’t actually believe in a spirit that can leave a body, but this was my experience this morning) leaving it. Both were me but like two sides of a coin. I was laying there unable to move at all thinking this is it, I’m dying. The spirit me was slowly leaving. My consciousness still identified more with the physical body. So it was nerve wracking to be leaving it even though it was still aware and going with the spirit me. It was almost as if the consciousness was a thing of its own, independently, watching its physical self and its non physical self. But it had to go with the non physical aspect. There was some anxiety and unhappiness about the thought that I will never be here on Earth again, all my thoughts, interests, experience… gone forever. The anxiety was just at the thought that it’s an unknown to me experience, and the unhappiness was just like I guess I’ll miss out on all the things I love each day. But I told myself it’s beyond my control and has to happen sooner or later anyway. It has to happen to all of us, and I’m no exception; we all have a time to go, and this is mine. It has to happen someday so why not now? What’s the difference if it’s now or in twenty years or forty years or whatever?? Same thing either way. This may seem wise. But in my case, it’s my depressed view. When I’m not depressed I have clung to life if I ever thought I was dying. Kicking and screaming and clawing at whatever I could to stay on Earth (not that I was ever really dying but a few occasions I have thought so).

Then I had another thought, wait! Could I be sleeping and this is a dream and I’m not dying but waking up back into my reality? I wasn’t sure but strongly suspected that. I felt that it’s dream me who is “dying” as the dream world is ending, not actually me dying. In a sense, dream me was dying as that version of me was ending and would never be again. At this thought, I felt more relief than I was expecting as I did not realize how put off I was at the thought of dying. Consciously, I was mostly indifferent to it. (This happens when I’m depressed and depressed I was both in reality and this dream) But I guess I wanted to live more than I realized. I noticed when I am at my most depressed s*icidal points, I often have dreams about wanting desperately to live even though in reality it feels I don’t. When I am dangerously s*icidal, which is not often but recurring, it’s common for me to have dreams that someone is trying to k!ll me, and I am trying desperately to run and get away and live. I noticed it through the years when my s*icide contemplation is serious. In my dreams I want to live and would do anything to survive. My depression produces very life affirming dreams.

Something was happening I just couldn’t quite grasp. My physical body was getting heavier and heavier and couldn’t move as I lay there sprawled out on the floor. The spirit me left physical me completely. It turned a corner, half walking, half floating, if I remember correctly (I think it meant to float, but since I am so used to being physical and walking, it was trying to walk out of habit – the consciousness was me, it was my sense of self, it felt just like me so still had some earthly ways about it even though it was no longer restrained by a physical body) in the dark hallway and was going somewhere with a strong sense of purpose, like it had a mission to accomplish (in reality I have been feeling I have no purpose lately, but this aspect of inner me felt deep purpose, and it was a beautiful feeling. It wasn’t clear at first what that purpose was, just that there is one, later I discovered the purpose was to wake up and live). There was no fear, only a deep sense of trust. I felt whatever is happening is happening and is ok. If I die, that’s ok, if I live and wake up in my bed where I remember falling asleep, that’s ok too, even better. There was a hint of anxiety about what if I somehow get stuck in this state and can’t wake up and don’t die and I’m just here forever(sleep paralysis always does this to me). But I chose to be positive and not let my mind dwell there, mostly I felt trust in the journey. I could feel myself cheering myself on. I felt that I had this, a feeling of “You got this self, just keep going.” I remember me in the back of my own mind keep thinking that’s right just keep going…and feeling joy each step of the way. It warms my heart now and stirs love & fuzzies in me. ❤️

Suddenly, I felt a strong force pulling the spirit version of me. I couldn’t see it but felt it. It was pulling so hard, and I realized whatever was going to happen, this was it, this was the moment I was either going to die or wake up. I still wasn’t sure which but strongly suspected I was dreaming and going to wake up. I could not move by choice. Physical me on the floor was immobilized or dead. And spirit me was being dragged somewhere by an invisible force beyond my control and felt so heavy. And the real physical me in my bed, was also immobilized. None of us could move, and we were all so heavy. (very typical of sleep paralysis but unlike sleep paralysis, there was no sense of intense fear and dread hanging over me, and no general sense of evil, ingrained throughout the dream, only curiosity, joy, determination, and a slight sense of anxiety and uncertainty, but nothing I couldn’t handle)


I did not want to admit this here (I actually wrote this for FB but posting here also) or anywhere, but I have been secretly contemplating h*nging myself recently, like seriously. I even have a cord I got for the purpose and a remote place in mind where I entertain the idea of going one night soon and ending it all. It helps me tremendously while depressed to know I have a way out and the resources needed; it’s less of a trapped feeling. Before I really did not know how/where I can go. Then it all fell into place the more desperate I got. I thought about getting the cord and did, and my concern was where without anyone around. Then I accidentally just happened to come across the perfect place one day where there isn’t a lot of activity, especially at night and in the cold. It feels so liberating just to have this potential plan even when it’s inactive. It helps ease my mind so much!! When I’m not depressed at all and am my usual happy self, I know it’s not the best idea to have this cord & place lined up for when I decide to go because it makes it much more likely for me to act on it. When I’m depressed, I don’t realize I shouldn’t act on it. When it lifts, I realize how messed up it is. But even when I’m my usual happy self, I know how much it helps me in that desperate depressed state just to have a potential way out, not just in my mind like before, but actually have the physical things necessary whether or not I go through with it. It makes all the difference. The risk of acting on it is greatly elevated though. Happy self isn’t happy about that. lol I’m not in a major episode of depression like sometimes that lasts straight through for a month or more, but keep having recurring waves of it that get bad for a few days then lift a while then return. I have felt for a while that I have no reason to live, that no matter what I do, even when it has practical purpose, it doesn’t matter, has no deeper meaning. And I struggle to give meaning to it because of my sense of inherent worthlessness. This is when my depression is flaring.

My body has been so heavy with depression, and while I still experience joy and some degree of interest in things like photography and movies and books and my work and iced lattes, it’s washed out joy, it’s here but numbed out a bit. Sometimes my depression is so bad I cannot even really tatse anything. With deep deep pain, significantly reduced pleasure and interest in things, a body that is so heavy it’s hard to move, no close friends/social support… it’s like why go on?? I keep getting so depressed about no longer having in person friends. I am very social and my happiest and healthiest when I have friends. Research even shows that lack of close friends can physically and emotionally sicken people and lack of physical touch. I am happy and well in every other aspect of life, but this is enough to depress me off and on, sometimes frequently, and permeate all of life. It eventually lifts and I am very happy again(still feeling the lack of friendship though). But it keeps coming back because I need a friend. I have been starved for the love of a friend, and my body has been starved for a hug of a friend. I don’t even have an acquaintance anymore just to hang out with. No phone calls, no texts, no meetups, no invitations anywhere, no message just to say hello or send a funny meme to make each other laugh… literally nothing. Online friends are real friends/family, but it’s not the same and doesn’t make up for in person socialization for those of us who are social/extroverted. Animals are just as important and loved, but different, animal companionship doesn’t make up for lack of human companionship just like the other way around.

Anyway, I promised into the air that if I wake up in my body in my bed, if this could just be a dream, if I’m not dying, I would try to stop giving into my depression, will get my infection treated, and try to stay alive and keep leaning into the joys all around me. That I would keep going. The spirit me was propelled then lifted into the air, up towards the ceiling. I was flying up up up beyond my control being pulled into the unknown then suddenly ripped back down and was falling falling falling so fast at lightening speed with such joy because I knew, I knew then I was alive and waking up. I knew I would find home in my own body. And dream spirit me crashed back into my body, my real body in my bed in my real house with the restroom in my room, not dream me body laying dead on that floor in that strange bathroom and hallway that isn’t mine, but the me who laid in bed, my actual bed. The real me woke with a jolt. It literally truly felt that something crashed off the ceiling into my body, giving me life. I watched and experienced in awe. Two aspects of me merging into one, making me whole, giving me life. That immobilized body in my bed could move again. I woke with a start and a smile. I was back in my soft blue comfy pj pants. The heaviness of my depression was mostly gone, and I felt immense joy, like I can go on. I fell asleep heavily depressed last night. This morning I was layers and layers lighter with a renewed will to live. I still felt the aftermath of being in a deep depression recently. When a depression lifts, if it was very severe, I may still feel some aspects of it lingering for a day or couple days, like the heaviness or a fog or some lingering self deprecating thoughts…, kind of like if you’re just getting over the flu or other physical illness and aren’t really sick anymore but still feel a vestige or hint or effects of it.

The thing that is so strange is how physical it felt. How it truly felt like a spirit or mind or something literally crashed into my body giving me life, waking me. It was so amazing!

I don’t believe in spirits or anything. I know it was my own mind making it all up. And we can dream something is touching us and wake up feeling as if it was real. I believe it was sleep paralysis. I have psychotic depression and have been hospitalized a couple occasions for it many years ago. It’s been acting up again The doctors said I had psychomotor impairment years ago because of severe depression, which can seem like sleep paralysis if we dream or hallucinate/have delusions with it. But I think it was sleep paralysis. It was still early so I fell back asleep. I had another strange dream. lol I woke up in that dream but woke up into another dream instead of reality and remembered the sleep paralysis dream I just had! So I remembered a real dream within another dream that was within a dream. I don’t know if anyone can follow that but anyway, don’t know what was going on with me last night, sounds like I was on acid or something but promise I wasn’t. 😆

I take no medication or drugs for anything currently. Will be needing antibiotics soon, and sometimes I take over the counter cold meds. That’s about it.

We don’t have to believe in spirits/evil/supernatural…to experience fear of it or believe it/feel it within the context of sleep paralysis. No matter how skeptic/atheist we are in reality, when sleep paralysis takes over and that feeling of evil is all around and we “sense” demons and stuff like that, our skepticism/atheism/logic/reason/non belief can be suspended while we are in that state, and we can feel that we are being taken by evil or a demon or taken to another dimension. Upon waking, we realize it was just a dream/sleep paralysis/night terror… whatever it was. Some people who believe in the supernatural wake up and believe they just had a terrible spiritual experience. A skeptic or atheist, like me, will not believe it during wakefulness. I don’t even necessarily believe it when it’s happening, but that does not make it any less real seeming or terrifying. But this one wasn’t terrifying.


It was a positive and enlightening and inspiring experience. I believe it was my unconscious mind sending me a message. My self sending a self love note, to keep going. I think it’s so funny that it involved a toilet and peeing. lol It’s just like me to bring humor into something and I’m immature like that and think bathroom stuff is funny 🤣 💩

The thing about this dream that was also so unusual is how my reality was incorporated into the dream and dream incorporated into my reality. In the dream I remembered just rolling over in my bed and was wondering how suddenly I got into the bathroom. And as I was walking out of the bathroom before collapsing, I was on my way back to my bed that I was just in. And my dream was incorporated into my wakefulness. The dream spirit me crashing into real me as I was waking into my reality. Like, dream state and wake state clashed, making it so bizarre and interesting. I’m sure there is scientific explanation; I think I read about it before, like when something happens during a certain stage of sleep. Maybe I wasn’t asleep enough and began to dream so wake reality and sleeping dream collided and merged, becoming a very intense, strange experience. I like it! I wouldn’t want it to keep happening or happen often though because it was too intense and engaging and wasn’t peaceful. I wouldn’t get enough rest. And there was anxiety involved. A little bit is ok, but I don’t need anxiety in my dreams every night.


And this seems like it could be a fun short movie clip if any artist out there wants to turn it into some kind of film, let me know! lol 😆 I must say, I’m quite creative while I sleep! 😴 💤 lolz

If anyone is reading and has any interesting sleep/dream/spiritual stories you have experienced, please share!! And if you want to analyze my experience and/or provide any insight, scientific or other, be my guest! I’m not interested in supernatural explanations as I don’t believe in that stuff.

💋😘❤️


And these pictures are me this morning after I truly woke up once and for all into real reality. lol

Thankfully I wasn’t actually peeing as I was dream peeing 😂

Also, I totally forgot in October to post my Halloween costume here! I will post it soon! Sexy/naughty nuns are in style all year anyway. 🖤😆

I hope you are having a beautiful day or night wherever in the world you are! ❤️ sending virtual hugs to anyone who wants.

Xoxo Kim

Amber 🖤 {a poem – inspired by my true experience}

Jul31

This photo above is my glitch art. I made it myself. It’s created with a tool called pixel sorting or processing.

I wrote this around 15 years ago. My phone crashed, and I lost most of my writing. But this one survived. Losing years and years of my work was devastating. It triggered a depressive episode. After the depressive episode ended, I still couldn’t bring myself to think about writing new stuff after all the old stuff got lost. I have written more recent stuff after a while. It wasn’t necessarily good, and wasn’t for publishing or anything, but it was work I was happy to have for myself, things inspired by my real experiences.

This poem is one of the very few surviving old ones.


This poem is called Amber.

Amber

I hear her loud screams
Through the night
As the walls shake
To the sound
That reverberates
Through severed veins
Managed to be sewn
Back together
After fountains of scarlet
Pouring out
Like red wine
Tainting everything it touches

My room is almost empty
The girl who was beside me
Night after night
Has been taken away
Her clothes and things
Packed up and moved
To another place
Her arms and legs
Now in thick metal shackles
To match the invisible ones
Chaining her
To some secret hell
No one else can touch

Now I am left alone
With Amber’s psychotic
Ramblings
And violent screams
That echo through me
Like broken galaxies
Lost in the endless darkness
Of space
They stick needles into her arms
While she protests
Violently kicking and thrashing
Convulsing
She is dragged to the quiet room
Just across the hall
Where she is alone
And drifts into a deep, dark sleep
But not for long
Soon enough
She is awake
With her hysterical sobs
And her dark fears
The voices scream at her
Inside her head
I hear them too
I can feel them pulsing
Through my own body
Malicious
Demanding
Persecuting
As I sit on the edge of my bed
And stare up at the white ceiling
And blank walls
Wondering
How this place got so large
It seems to expand before my eyes
Limitless spaciousness
The vastness is almost unbearable
Making me dizzy
As the voices grow louder
More threatening
As they bounce off the walls
And back
But they all pretend they can’t hear
All they hear are her agonized screams
Through the night
That pound through my head
Her dark hair
Messy and scraggly
Her eyes filled
With dark horror
As she claws at her own face

Somewhere I know
There is a girl
Deep within her
Buried
Beneath layers and layers
Of pain, despair, fear
And screaming voices
A girl who needs and yearns
And loves
But the strange voices
Drown out her own voice
Quiet it
Until it almost seems not to exist
But I feel her
Deep within me
Her light
Dim and flickering
But still present
The doctors and nurses
And the technicians
Come into my room
Again and again
Telling me to turn off the light
Get to sleep
To forget about Amber
But the voices
Won’t let me sleep
Amber’s voices
Clash with my own
And become a choir
Of haunting screams
Something deep within me
Implodes
Like empty rooms
With walls
Closing in
Suddenly, this place
Isn’t so large anymore
It’s small and stuffy
Claustrophobic
My walls close in
And my breath quickens
Along with my pulse
Fear paralyzes me
And I can’t scream
But her screams
Still blast through me
Like the moon exploding
In a dark sky
And I get cut
On the hot celestial shards
My skin bleeds
And my heart pounds
And I am dragged away
Into a deep, dark place
Where there is nothing
But loud
Agonizing
Screams
And voices
That never sleep
Echoing all
Throughout a night
That never seems to end

I hope you are having a beautiful day or night wherever in the world you are!

If you have any creative writing of your own you would like to share in the comments, be my guest! 😁

Xoxo Kim ♥️

Clowns 🤡

Feb28

Clowns 🤡 – Too Much Joy – song

“I have nightmares filled with clowns and you’re there too

You have a big red nose and stupid floppy shoes

You’re becoming one I can see the signs” 🤡

Trigger Warning ⚠️: Phobias mentioned here

Fun fact: Last night, I had a dream about coulrophobia. So I decided to turn myself into a clown. Lol

In the dream, I was watching a movie about a young man with coulrophobia(fear of clowns). I don’t remember what his job was in my dream but whatever it was, his coulrophobia was interfering with his quality of work. For something to do with his job, he had to see a clown 🤡 or something if I remember correctly. His job was not actually about clowns though. It was something he usually did not have to encounter but it just happened that he had to cross paths with a clown now at work, just a coincidence. Maybe he had to visit someone’s house for work where they had a clown figure or photo? I don’t really remember much about that but whatever it was, his quality of work was greatly suffering and his boss was angry. He ordered him to be treated with exposure therapy, a form of treatment often used to treat phobias. The young man was having emotional difficulty with the exposure. He had to walk alone into a dark room in an old warehouse or factory or something like that, at night, full of life sized clown mannequins so he can get used to them and no longer be afraid. He couldn’t handle it.

In the movie in my head, his boss called him and was angrily telling him to get his shit together and stop acting like a coward and get on with it because he had work to get done. He was tired of his “nonsense.” I can still hear his voice dripping with arrogance, disdain, indifference to someone else’s suffering.

The movie in my dream was about how people who were murderers, dressed as clowns just like the clown mannequins used for his exposure, and creeped into the building and stood in the room next to the fake ones so they could eventually jump out at him during his exposure treatment. Lol It wasn’t part of the therapy and his boss wasn’t in on it. They were just psychos who somehow knew about it. They were strangers.

In my dream, I somehow got into the movie. Like it somehow turned real. But this wasn’t strange in my dream like it would have been for real. Like in reality we would be amazed, shocked, or confused if we somehow got into a movie or a movie turned real. But in my dream it was just a casual thing. The movie was all of a sudden not a movie and was real life and I was in it. I was walking into the dark room with the clowns. I knew the killers were in there since I just was watching the movie and wasn’t sure if they would lunge for me or not. But I had something to do in that room. I don’t remember what or even if I knew in the dream but I wasn’t sure if I should keep going and fulfill my obligation or turn around and leave since the killers were in there. The young man wasn’t there and I knew he would be coming soon. I think whatever I had to do was for my own job. This is realistic of me to still consider doing something that needs to be done even if it may be dangerous to me. I work with dogs and sometimes they can be aggressive. There are occasions I still considered interacting with them even when they clearly wanted to rip me to shreds. Lol And occasions I had to still feed and give them water while they were coming at me because a dog has to eat. Lol So this part of my dream makes perfect sense.

I wasn’t scared in the dream but a bit anxious and my body was tense like it was deciding it maybe should run. Then I saw some of the clowns moving and a vague thought crossed my mind like is this real or is it part of a movie I was just watching. It was like reality (the dream’s reality) and the movie blended.

So I wasn’t sure what would happen. Are they going to get me or ignore me? I had a feeling like they weren’t going to try to kill me. This is how I am for real in general, very trusting and always expecting the least bad thing to happen. I generally have this feeling like everything will work out well. I am not very anxious. I have suffered a couple bouts with anxiety but am generally not someone who is anxious. So I wasn’t extremely concerned for myself.

This feeling like this is real but also not is difficult to explain but in the dream it made sense. It was like a blend of something. Like sort of real, sort of not. I think this is common in dreams.

I think I decided not to walk into the room just in case the clowns tried to kill me. Better safe than sorry. Lol I remember walking away with this feeling of being very safe.

Then I woke up. Lol Intrigued by the dream. I don’t know what provoked that vivid and detailed dream or if there is really a movie like this but if there is one, I haven’t seen it. My head just made it up.

I had exposure therapy myself in reality, a few years ago, for debilitating claustrophobia. It began as professional treatment but I quit and handled it on my own, continuing exposure on my own terms. My claustrophobia was interfering with life because I have to get on elevators for work. There is no option sometimes to use the stairs and my claustrophobia was taking over everyday even when I did not have to get on elevators that day because I knew I would soon have to get inside them. In my dream, I sort of remembered my real life exposure therapy and how it was absolutely frightening at first and I experienced empathy and compassion for the young man. It’s like cruelty, irony, the thing we fear most in life is the very thing we must come face to face with alone, to get better.

I used to avoid elevators at all costs. I used to run up 20 or more things of stairs just to avoid them. This wasn’t a problem because I am very healthy and fit and energetic, always have been. But in college I had to get to buildings early to be able to run up 20 or more floors without being late for classes.

Sometimes that isn’t an option and stairs are blocked off. Some years ago, my claustrophobia triggered suicidal depression in me to the point I couldn’t even hold my toothbrush to brush my teeth in the mornings. I couldn’t handle knowing on any random day I may have to go into an elevator and that triggered a depressive episode that became no longer about that; the depression took on a life of its own. So I was struggling with a severe depressive episode on top of a bad, bad case of claustrophobia.

I grew up claustrophobic for an unknown reason. I have been for as long as I can remember, mostly about elevators. But it was rarely a problem because I rarely had any reason to have to get into them. So it may not have been able to be diagnosed as claustrophobia back then. Sometimes I had to avoid visiting people in hospitals because I couldn’t get into an elevator to the hospital room. On the occasions I did force myself, I would have some psychiatric breakdown. I have collapsed in crippling panic and have embarrassed family in front of strangers at the mere thought of getting into an elevator. Now I think it’s hilarious, especially embarrassing my mom and dad. One day when I was little we were all on a glass elevator with a stranger and I began to panic. I screamed at the top of my lungs and began kicking and flailing my arms and yelling let me out, let me out, let me out….just to go up two floors. The stranger turned and just stared in shock. My mom and dad were so embarrassed. ” My mom yelled, “Kim, you did NOT have to act like that!!!” It gives me a good belly laugh now when I remember it. 🤣😂😭😄😹 I remember my body flooded with sweet relief when that door opened.

All these years later, if I wanted to keep my job, I had to get over it. And I did. Years of claustrophobia gone in just a few weeks of simple regular exposure. Exposure works wonders, at least for me. It made me realize how something so powerful and debilitating is actually very, very weak.

Whenever I had to step into an elevator, it felt like I was going to die. My mouth dried up and always tasted like metal, like literally tasting fear. My entire body felt squeezed in the chokehold of death. The fear is so powerful it feels like I would *literally* go insane, like lose all sense of language and awareness and bodily movements. I felt like I could claw out my own eyes and claw off my own skin. And one day I actually did claw my own skin off when I was in an elevator alone as a teenager. There was no way out of the building unless I got into an elevator. I went into a panic and just mindlessly began ripping my skin off with my fingernails. Everything turned white like this blinding light around my head. I couldn’t see or think. All I could do was claw at my own body, my arms and ab, all bleeding when I finally stepped out of the elevator.

Welcome to my nightmare. 🖤

(almost had a cow when I saw this a couple years ago 😳 🤣 Just sitting there, doors wide open as if to tempt me; it felt like it was watching me, daring me. Lol It’s an old out of service elevator in a building I visit for work. It hasn’t been in use for some years and is in a strange place, not near the rest of the elevators and looks all old and dingy while the rest are newer looking and its doors are ALWAYS closed. But one day, I walk by and the doors are open! Holy guacamole! My heart nearly leapt out of my chest. Luckily my claustrophobia was already healed by then but this thing made it want to come back 🤣😭😹 Some things you just can’t unsee)

It has always felt like an eternity before the doors opened again and a sense of deep, deep dread and despair & regret as I watched them close on me.

It’s a kind of fear that knocks the wind out of me and takes my whole breath away. I have been in awe at how powerful it is.

I had a relapse once after mostly recovering when it seemed like an elevator door took a second too long to open, when I was inside by myself. It came back with a vengeance. It was way worse than before. I got mostly rid of the claustrophobia on my own by getting into elevators with dogs and found it healing. Then it came back then the regular exposure on my own helped significantly.

Now even if a door seems to take longer to open, I don’t have breakdowns or relapses. I get into elevators everyday by myself with no problems at all and find them very peaceful. Like a very brief reprieve where the outside world and all its problems and noise and stress and drama can’t touch me.

I love how a place that once felt so dark and cold and deadly is now a place of warmth and security like being wrapped in a cozy blanket.

There are some random occasions, I am a bit anxious with elevators and avoid them or sometimes suck it up and get into them anyway. But it’s not frequent. And not severe. I know if I am already anxious about something else, something unrelated, and have to get into an elevator, it sometimes triggers the claustrophobia but it goes away again. I believe if I ever stop getting into elevators for a long while then I do again, the claustrophobia may come back. I have experienced this already. So I try to get into them as much as possible to keep it away. It’s a lifelong condition that has to be controlled with regular exposure or I will go insane with fear again.

I don’t know what is up with this dream. Lol But it reminds me a bit of my own real experience. Even the old, dark warehouse where the clowns were. My work office used to be in one. Lol

I am not afraid of clowns and never have been. This wasn’t a scary dream at all. It wasn’t a nightmare even though it may seem like it. I don’t usually have dark or scary dreams. They’re usually positive, happy, or mundane. Though I have been plagued off and on, for as long as I can remember, by nightmares about being inside elevators and being stuck in them, sometimes with people, usually alone. Or sometimes terrifying dreams knowing I will soon be getting into an elevator. Sometimes I wake myself up before it happens or I force myself awake after I get into one if I can. I still have them on rare occasions but almost never since the claustrophobia went away. They are horrifying dreams and just dreadful. I had them since I was little even when I did not have to get into elevators and haven’t been recently in one. My brain just obsessed with them for some reason. I don’t ever remember any unpleasant experience with elevators that made this happen, just grew up with it. My earliest memories are terror when near an elevator. Couldn’t even bring myself to look at them walking by. I used to curse whoever invented them. I felt like that person destroyed my life sometimes.

This dream is bizarre for me because I don’t usually have them like this and it seems a bit creative. I’m not someone who is a creative writer or anything. So I don’t know why my head made this up.

Very recently, like just over one week ago, I saw the word “heliophobia” and looked it up to see what it is(a fear of the sun or bright light) and while scrolling, the word “coulrophobia” showed up. I think this is what inspired the dream but don’t know why just seeing that word and a pic of a clown holding balloons would inspire a whole story in my head while I sleep. Lol It’s heliophobia I was was interested in, not the clown one.

And the dream was very, very vivid. I remember the clowns and their faces and their pastel colored pj’s and balloons.🎈 And I remember the young man very clearly but don’t remember ever seeing him for real in person. I read before that all faces we see in dreams are real faces we saw at one point in life, even if years ago. It doesn’t mean in the dream they were who they are in reality, just that the face is real. I don’t know if it’s true.

Horror movies are my guilty pleasure, which I think also contributed to the dream, and I think this would be a good movie! 😍

I hope you are having a beautiful day or night wherever you are!

Xoxo Kim 💜

Got anxiety? 💜

Dec31

Got anxiety? 💜

(Caution ⚠️ Someone messaged me and said this video I made triggers headaches in some so please watch with Caution or not at all if you have any health issues that may be triggerd – I did put a caution even before someone said that because things like this can trigger sensory issues and seizures in some and probably various other things as well)

Just watch this video I made with glitchlabapp , mirrorlabapp , and movee and take deep, slow breaths. Breathe in slowly, through the nose for four seconds (1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 Mississippi, 4 Mississippi) while the abdomen expands. Hold for seven seconds (1 Mississippi-7 Mississippi), then breathe out even more slowly, through the mouth, for eight seconds while the ab gets flat. Focus on breath and when the mind wanders, gently bring it back to breath. It will wander even for those experienced with meditation & breathwork. I would recommend bending your arms at the elbows and squeezing shoulder blades together if you’re physically able to and safely, before beginning the exercise. It opens up the airways/chest and makes breathing easier. Also, for those inexperienced, it’s easiest to lay down and hardest to be standing.

This often works instantly to calm down or feel a sense of inner peace, stop tremors, and heart racing, even if not done properly. Takes practice and persistence to get it down perfectly. But all it takes is a few seconds for results. May not work for everyone.

Anyone with sensory issues or seizure issues or any other extra/special needs maybe shouldn’t watch this video and anyone with physical limitations or pain maybe shouldn’t try the shoulder blade exercise. These things should only be done if you know you can do them safely.

Anxiety can be a fullblown disorder or just a mood we all experience on occasion throughout life. It can be mild to severe and can manifest in various ways, physical sensations, tremors, feelings of fear or panic, heart palpitations, difficulty sleeping, a deathly feeling…it’s different on different occasions and different for everyone and it’s never pleasant and is very, very common.

Sending love, peace, & light to all, xoxo 💛🕉

I hope you are having a beautiful day or night wherever in the world you are!

Xoxo Kim

Healing Anxiety Activity🖤

Jun30

This is an Instagram post of mine I’m sharing here!

This is not a good picture but it’s the concept I’m sharing. Five years ago, I lost my close friend, who was my coworker, unexpectedly, to a heart attack or sudden cardiac arrest, whatever the correct term is. Anyway, her heart just stopped out of nowhere and she collapsed to the floor and died. It wrecked & traumatized my whole world. I developed anxiety that I never had before. Not a fullblown condition but I would have sudden, insense anxiety/fear, out of the blue. Very difficult to endure. Not panic attacks but still a sense of panic. It was not interfering with life in general but definitely with my sleep and peace of mind. Not anxious thoughts usually, but anxious sensations. Bolts of fear surging through me and gripped in panic along with a couple anxious thoughts sometimes. Through the years those anxiety episodes have lessened but I still experience them. They are no longer about Diane’s death, exactly, but still rooted in that. Recently, I experienced a tragic pet loss and because of the circumstances, that fear has been coming back more again, in waves, and interfering with my sleep. My heart pounds when I’m laying as if I was running a marathon. And my insides are like in turmoil. It’s all day but worse at night. The way I see anxiety in my head is like small, sharp, gray/silver balls of activity wreaking havoc on my insides. Sometimes I imagine the balls of anxiety and visualize white or golden light around them, absorbing them into it until they are gone and only light remains. I decided to draw a picture of my imagination. I don’t draw or anything and not creative but decided to give it a try. I drew the balls in pencil then erased them til they became lighter, as if to lose much of their power, then colored them in yellow. I also wrote the word anxiety at the top and erased it then wrote inner peace over it. I colored around the paper in purple because purple/lavendar is soothing to look at and lavendar scent can have a calming effect. The pencil isn’t scented though. This is symbolic of healing anxiety. 💜💛 It’s a fun and soothing activity!

I hope you are having a beautiful day or night wherever in the world you are! It’s Morning here in Philadelphia, Pa, USA! 💛

xoxo Kim

Beauty and the Artist

Apr2

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“Beauteous art, brought with us from heaven,
will conquer nature; so divine a power 
belongs to him who strives with every nerve.

If I was made for art, from childhood given 
a prey for burning beauty to devour,
I blame the mistress I was born to serve.” ~ Michelangelo Buonarroti ❤

I found this beautiful quote in the novel, "The Agony and the Ecstasy" by Irving Stone.

It's a great quote which I interpret to be about his natural ability to be able to create artistic things, which he further develops through practice. He has a hunger for beauty and to create beautiful things through sculpting. I think his mistress is his untamed passion to create, his rapacious desire for beauty and art.

It’s really more like he is the prey to beauty; it seeks him out to wildly consume him, something that seems beyond his control. An urge, a pull, an immense craving he cannot resist. It overpowers him but in a beautiful way.

However it's meant to be interpreted, it flows so wonderfully and is full of passion and life.

It's beautiful to be so hungry, so full of desire and along with it, have the courage to act on it and the skills to succeed how we intend to.

Do you have an interpretation of this quote? If you want, share it here!

I hope you are having a beautiful day or night wherever you are!:-D

Much love to you,

xoxo Kim ❤

Beautiful story

Mar26

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https://pathsofthespirit.wordpress.com/2016/03/24/the-river-goddess/

I re-blogged this over and over and commented but it doesn’t seem like it was sent on any of those occasions!  So I’m sharing it here! 😀 
It’s a beautiful story! Very well written. I love how the goddess is so strong and independent. Some of her best qualities (her strength, tenacity, power, ferocity) are also her worst since they are used in dangerous ways against others. The personification of the river as a woman/goddess, especially one who is so strong and powerful and fierce, free in spirit, is beautiful and inspiring. Those are fantastic qualities to emulate in reality but with balance, mixing them with other qualities like softness, compassion for others, and empathy.  But there’s something beautiful and awe-inspiring about her being completely untamed, unable to be stopped, while inspiring the reverence and utter respect of others even though she doesn’t return that respect. Thank you for sharing your creativity, Trini! I love this! ❤

Please check out this beautiful blog & beautiful story! ❤

Much love & light to you,

xoxo Kim 😀

Help Me to Heal {a healing activity}

Mar21

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“Breathe it out and breathe it in
Trust the light that shines within
Let it burn ’til you learn to love yourself
Breathe it out and breathe it in
Trust the light that shines within
Let it burn ’til you learn to love yourself
Love will lead you home…
Love will lead you home…
Love will lead you home…” ~ Olivia Newton John ❤

A few years ago I came across a blog, I don’t remember the blog now but wish I had the link still or remember the name. It’s an art journaling blog on blogger.com, I think, and the lady suggested an activity to help heal any emotional pain we may have about certain incidents or situations in life.

I may have shared it before on here but I don’t remember. 

If so, it’s ok, it won’t hurt to share it again! 

The activity is to take an index card and a pencil and very lightly, in almost imperceptible strokes of the pencil, write on the index card every painful emotion we have surrounding whatever incident or struggle we choose. Make sure the words are incredibly light, almost unseen. Or write the words regularly then lightly erase them but still leave a vestige of what was. This, I suspect, is to symbolically lessen their power over us. So we are no longer gripped in their bondage. 

The event or situation can be anything at all that hurts us, for example a painful breakup, the loss of a friend or family member, pet to death or any other way, a family member or friend diagnosed with a serious illness, being rejected in some way, losing a job, the loss of an important material object (house, car, jewelry, money…), chronic pain or illness, sexual assault, abuse, addiction, feeling abandoned or excluded….. anything that hurts.

After filling the entire index card up with words to describe our pain, words like: pain, rejection, lost, lonely, empty, grief, despair, torture, fear, embarrassed, devastated, angry, furious, broken, confused, numb, guilt, betrayed, envy,jealous, sorry, regret, doubt, heartbreak…..

We then take a marker of any color, especially a bold color, and write over the light penciled words in bold words, positive words like: love, healing, compassion, self-love, inspiration, wisdom, life, joy, happiness, laughter, light, optimistic, positive, balance, full, pleasure, fulfilled, Metta, gratitude, oneness, empathy, understanding, caring, beauty, perseverance, overcoming, stillness, serenity, peace, calm, tranquil, recovery, vitality, spark, acceptance, hope,longevity….

I’m guessing this activity is symbolic of positive energy and emotions overpowering the unpleasant ones. The light penciled words have no power over us if we do not allow them. And if we choose and work on it, we can let the bold, happy words take over. The light words are still there. Here. They still exist, the scars still exist. But they are now dormant or powerless or just not the main thing we experience any longer, not the noxious energy they once were. 

Here is a fake one I made just for this post:

Unpleasant emotions/thoughts:

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(I made the words dark enough to see on here)

Empowering words/emotions/thoughts:

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“The answer is sleeping
Inside your heart
True love that you long for
That’s where it starts” ~ Olivia Newton John ❤

The situation I chose for this activity a few years ago is a form of rejection I once experienced. I allowed this experience to get to me much, much longer than is necessary. Well over a year after this experience, I was still shattered, devastated beyond words with no sign of it getting better. Some moments were worse than others. Some moments/days I finally felt like it would be ok but then I would crash back into the seemingly unbearable pain of it, feeling like I couldn't possibly go on. 

It wasn't depression but every now and then it would trigger a months/weeks long episode of depression and deep despair and even severe headaches, which became more frequent after this experience and lessened after I felt healed to a certain degree. Then when the depression would lift or the headache would ease, the severe pain of this situation would still linger, breaking me, bringing me to ruin. 

Rejection, loss, unrequited love, broken friendships/relationships,….are part of living and it's ok to experience them and for them to really affect us in deep and painful ways but they should never take over so much of life to where that's the main thing we dwell on each day and allow it to ruin our days or whole life. I let it ruin me. It's best if the pain of these situations begins to heal to a certain extent after a while. The pain does not have to be the thing that generally or frequently dominates. 

I was so pleasantly surprised at how much this activity really did heal me. I usually don't say things like something healed me or made me do something or caused something, because really, things usually help, provoke, and contribute to things, not actually cause it or make it happen. Things help me to heal. They don't usually heal me just themselves. 

But I feel this activity really healed me. Not completely. This is a scar I will always have and that's a good thing! It's good to be affected by all of life in both painful and joyous ways.

It's great to be touched in both pleasant and painful ways, by people and situations. 

It's better than being dead or numb or indifferent.

"There's nothing more whole than my broken heart." ~ Hasidic saying

But this activity really helped me heal the worst of the pain. It helped me release painful emotions themselves and the pain of how I viewed certain things. It helped me let go and liberate myself so I am no longer ruled by the situation. 

I was expecting it to maybe help a little bit, even if only during the moments I was engaging in it. But even after it was over, I immediately sensed a change deep within. I felt something release and shift and while I still carry that pain, that scar, that sliver of an ache, it's usually not the red, flaming hot agony it once was that felt like it was scorching the very soul of me.

"I know I'll find the strength to fight
If I can trust I'm gonna be alright
So walk me through my darkest fears tonight
Help me to heal
Help me to feel
All I know is what I see
So won't you help me to believe
Help me to heal" ~ Olivia Newton John

Help Me to Heal – mobile

Help Me to Heal – desktop

I only ever did this activity once and I lost the card but I have it somewhere. I read a book recently about how to cleanse our energy or aura and in the book is an amazing list of healing activities I’m going to try. This one is not in the book but the book reminds me of this one. It’s a fantastic cleansing experience. 

This activity can be performed for any problem whether it’s seemingly trivial or feels like it’s the end of the world.

I’m going to try it again for other struggles. 

I strongly recommend this activity. It’s not a cure and there’s no doubt in my mind that not everyone will be as helped by it as I am.
It’s likely not for everyone. Even if it doesn’t have long lasting effects like it does for me, just the act of engaging in it can be very healing. 

We can also color it with soothing colors, draw on it, anything creative to add to it. We can put our own spin on it.

It’s a very simple, very brief, but very profound method of healing.

❤

I hope you find it healing like I do if you want to try it!

Learn to Love Yourself – mobile – Olivia Newton John

Learn to Love Yourself – mobile

Much love & light to you, always! 

😀

Xoxo Kim  ❤

One word.

Jan20

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“…maybe if we are surrounded in beauty
Someday we will become what we see.” ~Jewel

I’m Sensitive – Jewel – mobile

I’m Sensitive – desktop

This post is longer than I want it to be but I’m much better, in general, with keeping my posts, messages, comments to people….shorter. Who wants to read like 20 pages of a blog post or e-mail or comment?! Lol But I still tend to get carried away now & again!

;-D   

For the last few years I heard about the one word challenge where we choose one word for the new year and decide to live up to and honor it any way we can the whole year.

I never felt compelled to participate in this because I felt there’s too many words I want to live each day, not just one. It seemed uninteresting to choose one word to live & breathe each day for just one year. And many words or concepts are interconnected. So how do we choose which aspect to focus on? And I used to think, when the year ends, what happens to our word? It gets chucked out the window, kicked to the curb, forgotten, abandoned? 

I remember at the end of 2013, I was having a horrible cluster of severe headaches and it was terrible. The word I clung to is “hope.” Hope that my headaches would soon end or that I would learn to live with the blinding, burning, aching agony, somehow learn to live with it. I bought a few things including a candle holder and notebook with the word “hope” on it.  I was so hurt and the end of 2013 is one of the most desperate, agonizing, traumatic, but beautiful seasons of this life of mine. Even though I still feel the trauma of it while remembering, it really showed me my strength and how desperate but hopeful I can be. It showed me what I’m made of and how a single word can do so much, be so much, be so inspiring, so empowering. The memory, while painful, is also beautiful in my mind. It really tested my life philosophy that life is so beautiful and is worth holding onto, worth each battle, even with very severe pain, both emotional & physical.  

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My experience with headaches piqued my interest in the one word challenge but not too much. But I wrote here that if I were to choose a word for 2014, it would be “hope.” I wanted to go into 2014 with more hope and a conscious, intentional determination to find & feel hope. I still did not engage in the one word challenge very consciously but I did better keep hope alive. 

You can read my December 2013 post here:

https://inspirationalgem.wordpress.com/2013/12/31/and-then-a-hero-comes-along-with-the-strength-to-carry-on/

This year though, I received an e-mail, a subscription e-mail, suggesting I try the one word thing as an alternative to new year resolutions and for some reason I felt so inspired and compelled to participate the moment I began reading the e-mail and the word “beauty” was already in my head. I did not even have to search for or contemplate my word; it was just here in my head. I think it’s because my wisdom is deeper now than it was every other year that this challenge now inspires me enough to participate. Not that those who aren’t interested in this challenge are not as wise or even more wise than I am! 

It’s just that I now see the wisdom of focusing on just one word. Or just one thing. It doesn’t mean we can’t also honor other words or incorporate them into our days. Or that once the year ends so does our focus on the concept of our chosen word. I won’t stop seeing beauty when it turns 2017.  It’s just that the simplicity of focusing more on just one word for this challenge is very effective and organized. And we can take the skills it equips us with into the new year while choosing a new word to put more focus on.

Sometimes if we have multiple things to give much attention to, it can be distracting or not as clear. 

For example, when I have multiple books out or multiple books on my Kindle’s home screen, I often don’t know where to start or start with one book then keep switching. I love reading two books or even three on the same days but having too many isn’t always good because I don’t focus on the couple I try to. It’s good to give attention to one or two then when they’re through, move on to the next. I have had good books I tossed aside and never read yet because I had too many out at once and kept getting distracted so gave up on them all for a while.

It can be the same with college classes or utility bills that we are in debt with, if there’s too many, we may not know where to begin or how to get organized. 

One word for this activity brings clarity and organization. 

My word is “beauty.” I vow to see and look for beauty in each day, every situation, every person, no matter what goes on. I see/feel beauty naturally and when it doesn’t come naturally some occasions, I make it a point to look & find. 

But this year, I will focus even more on the beauty of life each day. When I say “see” I’m not just referring to visual beauty but all forms of physical and non physical beauty. We can use all the senses we are blessed with, however many we have. It’s often said we have five senses. Some say we have more. And some people have less than five. But no matter how many we have, we can use them to bask in all the beauty they receive. Beauty of all forms can engage our senses.

But beauty isn’t just physical. Haven’t you ever just felt the beauty of something or someone or your own beauty or beautiful feelings? I can often feel beauty, not just with my senses but feel it deep within. It can’t even be explained in words. 

“Sometimes people are beautiful. Not in looks. Not in what they say. Just in what they are.” ~ Markus Zusak

There are many practical steps we can take to participate in this activity. We can use journals, calendars, arts & crafts, social media, lists, various outlets….

I focus on and see and feel so much beauty but this year I want to make it more intentional and even more conscious. 

One of my first steps to living in beauty will be better organizing my room. I am horribly disorganized in a physical way. My room is always a mess. I live with my mom, dad, and sister and my sister said my room is like a teenage boy’s room. Lol

I have food and candy wrappers around, clothes and books scattered around, soda cans, stuff just out of place. I disagree with a lot of people who say the condition of our room or house says who we are or a lot about who we are. Sorry but no my messy room will not tell you too much of who I really am within. All my room says about me is that I’m disorganized. Someone may interpret it as me being careless or apathetic or emotionally imbalanced but I’m not, I’m just a slob is all. Lol 

In elementary school, I loved school and my schoolbooks and class but my desk was one of the worst! I crumpled up paper and folders and just shoved them in my desk. I had broken crayons and pencils scattered about. ( I miss those desks now that I think about it!)

In high school, which I also loved, in eleventh grade English class, my teacher held up my folder and notebook which were overstuffed, falling apart, crumpled up, to the class as an example of what not to do. Lol Awkward! 

I have a beautiful mind and am passionate about the beauty of life and I love my books and things even though they are thrown around.

But it’s definitely more pleasant to walk into a beautiful room. Especially if we are someone who struggles with depression. 

My disorganization doesn’t depress me but organization and a beautiful room can be uplifting to someone who is in an episode already. And when we’re already deeply depressed, I’m sure clutter and things out of place, can drag us down a bit more. 

So I plan on organizing and beautifying my room completely! Not just clearing the junk but setting out more pretty things that stimulate the senses and emotions in a positive way, candles, knick knacks, decorations, flowers, pretty colors….  There’s also things I want to get rid of because they contribute to not just taking up space they aren’t worth but they contribute to negative energy or are somewhat draining to me.  

One thing I have laying around my room are celebrity gossip magazines. Eww. I do not read those. EVER! But my sister and me sometimes cut stuff out of magazines to glue into notebooks and stuff and we have a bunch of various kinds or magazines laying around the house. The one magazine I cannot stand to have near me is the celebrity gossip magazine. No thank you. I don’t think it’s ok to trash talk celebrities or stalk them or harass them at every street corner or air out their dirty laundry without them wanting us to, or make up and perpetuate lies about them just because they chose a job that comes with fame and fortune. They are not different than I am. I would never want gossip magazines or blogs or things about me and people constantly on my ass watching my every move then reporting it to the media or others. That would suck! Also, I do not judge people who read them. When I was young I used to read them myself. I used to try to sneak around in stores reading them without getting caught because we’re not supposed to read without buying. Sometimes they still catch my eye, rarely but still happens. I wasn’t horrible for getting into celebrity gossip. My sister loves celebrity gossip and my grandmom does. It’s just not my cup of tea anymore. I like stuff that others think is terrible to love. (like fiction horror stuff! And some people can’t stand horror books and movies/dvds just being near them like me with the magazines. It doesn’t mean they think less of me for loving it.)  

But that’s beside the point here anyway. My point is those magazines do not aid in my Beauty/one word challenge. They actually go against it. They don’t take up much space but they contribute to unpleasant feelings when I glance at them. I usually throw something on top of them so I don’t have to see them. But soon I will get rid of them completely! Things have an effect on our energy whether or not we fully or consciously realize it. Something that affects my energy or vibration a certain way may not have the same effect on others. It’s important to tune in and see how things affect us. Something that I find exhilarating(like being around lots of people, for example) may be life draining to someone else. It’s important to go deep within the self, pay attention, and see how things affect our energy. 

http://oneword365.com/

On the website (above) for the one word challenge they give seven ideas to effectively integrate our word into our everyday using a calendar. I probably won’t be using a calendar but I will be using a journal and put the date on each page, hopefully at least once a day. My handwriting is terrible though and it so frequently contributes to me giving up on journaling. I write like a 1st grader but worse. But as part of my beauty challenge I know I will find beauty even through my horrific handwriting. 

On the website they suggest a paper calendar or planner but also mention that most tips will work with a digital one. They also suggest maybe dedicating a specific planner or journal to our word, which I will be doing. 

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Here are their seven tips and my thoughts about them.

“1. Make a list of actions you can do daily, weekly or monthly that focus on your word and help you integrate it into your life. Then schedule them into your calendar.”

This is really good for staying motivated. I’m horrible with keeping up with things. I get so wrapped up into doing other things and then my goals get kicked to the curb. By scheduling them into each day, incorporating our word into our life each day, not only are we more likely to not give up on it but it will be more threaded throughout life each day, maybe having a deeper effect. 

“2. Collect quotes and sayings about your word and write them down in the daily or weekly section of your planner.”

This is one of my favorite ones because I love quotes & sayings & clichés! They are so powerful, quick, and uplifting! They are brief but say so much in just a few breaths. I think I will try to find a quote or song each day or week about beauty of some sort and write it in my beauty/one word journal as well as share here sometimes. 

The song I shared above, I’m Sensitive by Jewel is a great song about inner beauty and surrounding our own selves and each other in beauty. It’s about being kind to each other. It’s a beautiful song.

“3. Create a simple bookmark with your word. Take a piece of cardstock or scrapbook paper and write your word onto it with a sharpie. Punch a hole at the top and attach a ribbon. Use the bookmark in your planner to mark the current day.”

This sounds really fun! I think I will!

Maybe I’ll use these!

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(the little nose is my dog, Woody’s. Lol He was interested in my circles.)

I got them at Target a couple years ago but never really used them much.

“4. Write, doodle, draw or paint your word on your daily or weekly pages, or assign a fixed spot to write it down in your monthly overview.”

This is really good for maintaining our focus on our chosen word. Allow it to seep into even our daydreams and lazy thoughts. 

“5. Keep a record of things that happened relating to your word. Did it teach you something? Did it surprise you? Write it down!”

Yes, our experiences each day can strengthen our focus on our word and our determination to honor that word can help us stay positive in situations that may tempt us to succumb to unhappiness or other unpleasant feelings. I have an example already. I had a psychiatric appointment recently that  I did not feel much like going to just because. Sometimes I have to wait hours in the waiting room when my appointment should have been over in fifteen minutes. The people there are not always pleasant to interact with. The workers often treat us like we’re nothing just because we are financially struggling and mentally ill(at least I suspect that’s why – they don’t treat each other or the doctors in this manner, that I know of). They act in a very condescending, rude, abrupt manner, sometimes. Not all of them but enough of them. Not the nurse I talk to, she’s sweet, or the peer specialists who are also mental patients but very advanced in recovery. They are very friendly.  It’s a free mental health clinic and I am very blessed and thankful I have access to it. It’s not always a walk in the park having to deal with it but there are so many opportunities to find beauty like on my walk there, the air on my skin, things I can take pictures of, even glimpses of beauty seen in the people who act in rude ways(they still have good things about them!)…., the other patients I sometimes talk to, the people I meet on the way sometimes. Broken people attract other broken people. We often just sense each other. So I’m always finding someone new to talk to whether another patient or someone hanging around the clinic or neighborhood or at the busstop. There’s a couple busstops near the clinic. I usually walk the half hour instead since I love walking. It’s good to keep a list or book of our inner experiences of how this activity goes for us. It helps organize our thoughts, see what’s working well, what isn’t, and we’ll always have it to look back on. 

“6. Take a look at your to-do list: can you use your word as a guide to tackle your tasks? If you for example chose “Simplify” and you have 35 items on today’s list, you know what to do… :)”

Yeah this is similar to the above answer. Just incorporating it into our everyday tasks. This will have more of an impact. Our everyday chores, tasks, encounters are great opportunities to get in the habit of living up to our chosen word. And it can make these tasks more interesting if we incorporate our word’s concept into them.  In my case, it will be more mindfully finding beauty in each mundane encounter or situation, even the more unpleasant ones. Finding beauty or creating beauty in ugliness or dullness. Using our word to tackle tasks can stimulate our creativity. We can find new ways to integrate our word in each day, thread it throughout our everyday. Maybe your word is even creativity or creative and this activity itself honors that word. If your word is “calm” or “peace,” you can make it a point to do mindful exercises while doing each mundane task you have to do. If you are often late for work or somewhere else important, you probably aren’t very calm on your way there almost being late! That’s so distressing! So you can either start leaving earlier to be more calm or still be late but focus on breathing (and driving! If you drive to work or wherever it is) to calm your nerves.  Those are just some examples. 

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“7. Cross off or circle the dates in the calendar to indicate that your word has been present that day. A year-at-a-glance calendar can serve as a tracker for the whole year.”

Yeah this is really good for getting us in the habit of actively “using” our word each day. If you are a calendar user already (I’m not) then it’s probably even more effective than a journal keeping you on track because you already use it. With the journal, it’s a new activity I have to remember and find motivation to keep up with, challenging but fun! Also, marking the days that our word is present, we can keep track of and look back on our progress and better maintain our one word goal. 

While this activity can be practical like with journals and physical actions taken, it can also be an experience in our heads, just to honor our chosen word in our inner world, summoning feelings and images that relate to it.

I want to find beauty everywhere and share it with others through photos, quotes, blog posts, Facebook posts, conversations on and offline….I do this anyway but this year, I will be even more mindful. 

I will also live in love, compassion, kindness, inspiration….and other lovely words…but beauty is my word for this challenge. And beauty includes love and inspiration and other concepts. Compassion, kindness, & love are beautiful and when I engage in or feel them, I will also be honoring my chosen word, “Beauty.”

If you are also doing this challenge, I would love to know your word and/or how you plan to honor it each day! So let me know! You can write it in the comments here, write me an e-mail @ kimberlyjm52@gmail.com or write your own post on it and send me the link! I hope to think of some more creative ways to live in Beauty! ❤ 😀

Got any ideas? If you have anything to add, like creative ways we can incorporate the concept of our word into our everyday, let me know! I love knowing people's ideas! 

Even if you haven't chosen your word yet, you can now! Or whenever you want! I just decided to engage in this fun & inspiring activity a couple days ago!  And my mind is already even more in the habit of seeing beauty in mundane and unpleasant situations. It's never too late as long as we're alive!

😀

Here are some ideas I thought of: serenity, inspiration, love, patience, gratitude, peace, kindness, creativity, light, motivation, astute, organization, beauty, alive, truth, acceptance, wonder, awe, confidence, clarity, discernment, tranquility, play, playful, , humor, laughter, lighthearted, health, enthusiasm, positivity, optimism, forbearance, magnanimity, humbleness, humility, independence, joy, openness, receptive, passion, tolerance, bold, assertiveness, fierce, gentleness, nurture, strength, wisdom, tact, spirit, attitude, persistence, compassion, hope, Earth, oneness, heart, sky, fun, mindfulness, music, song, minimalism, simplicity, growth, happiness, zen, balance…

Maybe you want to choose a word that already resonates with you in a deep way or maybe you want it to be a bit more challenging and choose a word or concept you struggle with. Either way is fantastic!  

When we choose a word, we can still live all these other words too but our focus for the challenge will most directly be on the one we chose for it. There are so many, many creative ways we can come up with to live the word we choose. 

Check this out for more fun & inspiring ideas for this new year! They are alternatives to the new year resolutions. 

10 Alternatives to New Year’s Resolutions

Thank you!! 

Xoxo Kim