I'm stronger than I ever knew.

A mighty wind blew night and day
It stole the oak tree's leaves away,
Then snapped its boughs and pulled its bark
Until the oak was tired and stark.
But still the oak tree held its ground
While other trees fell all around.
The weary wind gave up and spoke,
"How can you still be standing, Oak?"
The oak tree said, "I know that you
Can break each branch of mine in two
Carry every leaf away,
Shake my limbs, and make me sway.
But I have roots stretched in the earth,
Growing stronger since my birth.
You'll never touch them, for you see,
They are the deepest part of me.
Until today, I wasn't sure
Of how much I could endure
But now I've found, with thanks to you,

I'm stronger than I ever knew.

Transition - The truth has set me free.

Since my last post, a tremendous amount of change has ripped through my life. This last year's been a crazy ride and while it's been terribly confusing for me up until now, I'm relieved that it's over. These last two months have brought a great amount of clarity as a result of a couple more painful trials. I am finally realizing that the pain I've felt has been necessary for me to grow and learn.

Certain truths have come to the surface to show themselves and being a big picture person, I took a step back and tried to look at everything from the outside. The result was the realization that these most recent falls were opportunities for me. My choice was either to let everything further defeat me or to use the situations as opportunities to move forward. It became clear that the truth really did set me free. I never understood that saying until the moment when I learned the truth. I was no longer burdened and stifled with confusion and doubt. I felt like I was being given validation and a new beginning without the negativity. I realized that I had been given an opportunity to remove myself from that negativity that had been plaguing me. I took that leap.

Now I'm looking forward. Obviously in the forefront of my mind is the mountain of hurt I have to come to terms with. While I'm confident I've removed myself from the path of additional hurt, I still have to get over this mountain. This is something I'm working through on a daily basis, but with a newfound appreciation and motivation. I've been surrounding myself with loved ones who have proven to be on my team and appreciate me. I've been focusing on goals, training for a half marathon and taking online classes. The most significant factor in my journey forward is my fast-coming move to San Diego. I'm doing something for myself and making decision based solely on what I want. I am moving toward a fresh start with no strings attached. I'm entering the biggest transition I've faced and I'm entering it feeling completely free. I'm exercising my power to choose and I choose freedom.

I obviously wish I could just say what I mean because it's really hard to explain how I feel without explaining exactly why. It's hard to say what I have to say without actually saying it, so sorry if this is vague and confusing.

Destiny

des-ti-ny (noun): a predetermined course of events often held to an irresistible power or agency

If that's the definition of the word, how is it that we can have the maximum power to shape our own destiny? If a course of events is predetermined, how can we have any control?

I never really understood that theory that assumes 'everything happens for a reason' or 'what is meant to be will be'. In my dreamworld, I'd really like to believe that those things are true, but part of me feels like that's a cop out that people like to flock to when they can't face disappointment. I wonder what I need to be so strong for if so many of my experiences are supposed to make me stronger. Should I be scared that I'll need that strength for something even bigger to come? I don't like the sound of that.

Anyway...My fear is that if we can shape our own destiny, a decision I make will steer me away from my destiny or take me on a detour of wasted time. Then again, those who believe that everything happens for a reason would say that the detour was all part of the plan. It was a path that led me to my destiny or something that needed to happen in order to shape me into who I am supposed to be, whoever that is. Maybe all of this is easier for those who are religious because somehow they were granted the ability to have faith in something they'll never really understand.

I wonder if this life right now is my destiny. Ok I'm only in my mid-twenties, so what could I really know about my destiny at this point right? I'd really like to know when the rest of my life will start though. I wonder if my destiny is that the rest of my life isn't supposed to work that way. My life's not supposed to start in the typical sense, but may have many starts and finishes before my dying day. Some people live in the same place, marry, have children, and live in the same house doing the same job for most of their lives. Maybe my life's not supposed to work that way or at least that's how it's starting to look. Maybe my life's a collection of short stories or mini sagas rather than a novel. If that's my destiny, maybe I shouldn't feel as disappointed as I do, but should just suck it up and go with it. I obviously can't control anything external, so I may just want to focus my thoughts on this destiny theory. If it really is irresistible, I probably shouldn't waste the energy trying to fight back anyway.

That brings me back to my first question. How can we shape our own destiny? Our choice of paths to take through life seem to be just that: our choices. If they're determined by us, what does that have to do with destiny? Apparently, I'm confused and very intrigued. I'll just hope this destiny theory is true and that things really do happen for a reason and that what is meant to be will, in fact, be. If that's true, obviously following your heart is the best life strategy. If destiny's predetermined, it must be driven by emotion. There must be a feeling you get that triggers a decision. If you fight the feeling, I would think you fight your destiny. Maybe that's why people often end up with the wrong people; they are stubborn. So our power to shape our destiny might just be granted by the emotion we can never really understand, but should just act on.

Maybe the moral of the destiny story is to follow your heart. Emotion has to be life's way of telling us something. It's something we can't explain, so it must be the answer. Our destiny is given to us through emotion and our power to shape our destiny lies in our power to make decisions based on the emotion we feel. Now if only following your heart were that easy...

Do you like how I just blogged my way to my answer?

Life's Treasures

"More than a few fairy tales feature the theme of characters who accidentally find a treasure. They’re not searching for treasure, don’t feel worthy of it, and aren’t fully prepared for it. They may initially not even know what they’re looking at, and see it as preposterous or abnormal or disquieting. Who could blame them if they ran away from the treasure? In order to recognize and claim it, they might have to shed a number of their assumptions about the way the world works. And they might have to clear up a discrepancy between their unconscious longings and their conscious intentions."

Being someone driven by emotions and the heart, I immediately interpret the treasure as people and love. I interpret that treasure as people with something special to give us which should be, as a result, treasured. It seems that, just as the above states, that treasure comes along when we aren't searching for it. We may have plans of our own and a vision of how we'll live our lives. We may feel defeated in a lot of ways...our experiences having left us feeling jaded and pessimistic. Regardless, it seems that little gems get placed in our paths and those gems represent something of great value.

These treasures, big or small, change our perception of life. If we can shed our assumptions and swallow our pride, we can embrace the gems that offer something special. Just as the above states, there are often discrepancies between our unconscious longings and our conscious intentions. One of my assumptions about how the world works is that we hide behind these conscious intentions too often. We develop some idea of how to live that will hopefully protect us and serve our selfish purposes. Those conscious intentions are set into place ignoring the subconscious longings we know are deep inside of us. Some of us are scared of those longings because they involve risk that could bring hurt. Unfortunately, many of us are scared of those longings not because of a fear of hurt, but the opinions of other people. However, in order to claim the treasures life drops around us, we have to shed those assumptions of how the world works and explore our subconscious longings.

Treasures can teach us. They can teach us about ourselves and about our lives. They can teach us about humanity as well as humility. That may be their contribution to our journeys. They can also provide something even greater and long-lasting. They may be a treasure to keep close to our hearts throughout our journeys. What I do know is that we'll never know their worth if we don't let our guards down to claim the treasures as our own. We may pass by our most valuable discoveries.

"Never take a person for granted. Hold every person close to your heart because you might wake up one day and realize that you've lost a diamond while you were too busy collecting stones."

Vast Possibilities

I'm starting to think this may be a weekly staple of my blog. That is, as long as these horoscopes that are so geniusly interpreted are also as palpably applicable and inspiring as they have been in recent weeks. So again, thank you Rob Brezny of The Boulder Weekly for giving me yet another amazing horoscope to contemplate for this week of February 18, 2010.

"“Jane Austen was the spinster daughter of a clergyman who led an uneventful life,” wrote Geoffrey Wheatcroft in The Guardian. “She just happened to write half a dozen flawless masterpieces, which came perfectly formed, not from experience but from imagination.” Most of us don’t have anything close to the inconceivably potent imagination that Austen possessed. But I believe 2010 will be a year when you can access at least a portion of that wondrous capacity. You’ll be able to fantasize about vast possibilities in exquisite detail. You will have great skill at smashing your way free of limiting expectations through the power of your expansive vision. And the coming weeks will be a time when it should all kick into high gear."

Well said! I don't believe I'll find it too difficult to dive back into my imagination again. I can sense it's coming back to me. My capacity to fantasize about all sorts of possibilities is especially intense. So here's to the coming weeks! I can tell they're going to be good ones!

(I'll ignore the mention of Jane Austen being a 'spinster' who never married.)

"Ever Thine, Ever Mine, Ever Ours"

In recognition of the holiday that celebrates love and compassion, the dreamer in my heart wants to share some beautiful expressions of love and compassion. Rather than believing that Valentine's Day is a day for couples to say "I love you" in a commercial way, I feel that it's a day for all to recognize and be aware of love as the most powerful feeling there is. Recognize the emotions related to affection, attachment, interpersonal attraction, and a deep feeling of tenderly caring for another person. Be aware of romantic love as well as platonic and familial love.

"There is no remedy for love but to love more." Henry David Thoreau

I am a deep and emotional thinker who dreams of great love. Naturally, I fear the pain of repeated heartbreak, but I do believe in love at all costs even if the cost is the pain required to learn and gain strength. I don't believe in a life without the desire to feel and express love. We can't control our emotions and the things life brings our way. Choosing not to embrace those emotions and gifts is a disservice to ourselves and others. Life is about relationships and interaction. Don't let fear keep you from loving. Be free to love. Give in to love.

Coldplay "Parachutes"

In a haze, a stormy haze

I'll be 'round, I'll be loving you always

Always

Here I am and I'll take my time

Here I am and I'll wait in line

Always, always

Napoleon Bonaparte to Josephine De Beauharnais - Paris - December 1795:

I wake filled with thoughts of you. Your portrait and the intoxicating evening which we spent yesterday have left my senses in turmoil.

Sweet incomparable Josephine, what a strange effect you have on my heart!
Are you angry?
Do I see you looking sad? Are you worried? ...
My soul aches with sorrow, and there can be no rest for your lover; but is there still more in store for me when, yielding to the profound feelings which overwhelm me, I draw from your lips, from your heart a love which consumes me with fire? Ah! it was last night that I fully realized how false an image of you your portrait gives!

You are leaving at noon; I shall see you in three hours. Until then, mio dolce amor, a thousand kisses; but give me none in return, for they set my blood on fire.
Bonaparte

Neil Young "Like A Hurricane"

You are like a hurricane

There's a calm in your eye

And I'm getting blown away

To somewhere safer

Where the feeling stays

I want to love you

but I'm getting blown away.

I am just a dreamer

but you are just a dream.

Mark Twain to his future wife, Olivia Langdon - May 12, 1869:

Out of the depths of my happy heart wells a great tide of love and prayer for this priceless treasure that is confided to my life-long keeping.

You cannot see its intangible waves as they flow towards you, darling, but in these lines you will hear, as it were, the distant beating of the surf.

Persian icon of passion and love over seven centuries ago, wrote:

The children of Adam are limbs of one body

Having been created of one essence.

When the calamity of time afflicts one limb

The other limbs cannot remain at rest.

If you have no sympathy for the troubles of others

You are not worthy to be called by the name of "man."

"Love is a condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own"

Robert A. Heinlein

John Keats to Fanny Brawne - March 1820:

I cannot exist without you - I am forgetful of every thing but seeing you again - my life seems to stop there - I see no further. You have absorb'd me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I were dissolving

....I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for religion - I have shudder'd at it - I shudder no more - I could bemartyr'd for my religion - love is my religion - I could die for that - I could die for you. My creed is love and you are its only tenet - you have ravish'd me away by a power I cannot resist.

Psychologist Robert Sternberg's trianglular theory of love argues three components: intimacy, commitment, and passion. Intimacy is the sharing of confidences and details of personal lives and is shown in friendships and romantic love. Commitment is the expectation that the relationship is permanet. Passion and sexual attraction are shown in romantic love as well as infatuation.

Ronald Reagan to Nancy Reagan - Aboard Air Force One - March 4, 1983:

Dear First Lady

I know tradition has it that on this morning I place cards Happy Anniversary cards on your breakfast tray. But things are somewhat mixed up. I substituted a gift & delivered it a few weeks ago.

Still this is the day, the day that marks 31 years of such happiness as comes to few men. I told you once that it was like an adolescent's dream of what marriage should be like. That hasn't changed.

You know I love the ranch but these last two days made it plain I only love it when you are there. Come to think of it that's true of every place & every time. When you aren't there I'm no place, just lost in time & space.

I more than love you, I'm not whole without you. You are life itself to me. When you are gone I'm waiting for you to return so I can start living again.

Happy Anniversary & thank you for 31 wonderful years.

I love you
Your Grateful Husband

I really do believe love can conquer all. I believe it can and should conquer your 'self'. Afterall, why are we here if not to love each other and bring happiness to one another? So on this Valentine's Day, rather than focusing on the loneliness that is often brought to light during the commercial celebration of relationships, focus on the possibility of great love. Focus on the love you do feel for whomever and appreciate the love and compassion that is felt for you by whomever. First, always love yourself.

"divine the secret self of another"

Week of February 11, 2010

CANCER: Happy Valentine Daze, Cancerian! After meditating about what advice would be most valuable for your love life in the coming months, I decided on this challenge from poet William Butler Yeats: “True love is a discipline in which each divines the secret self of the other and refuses to believe in the mere daily self.” In other words, create in your imagination a detailed picture of your loved ones at their best. Each day, make it a point to feel joy and gratitude for their most excellent beauty and power — as well as the beauty and power that are still ripening and will one day appear in full bloom.

Such a positive and hopeful way to love another: focusing on their potential. I truly believe in this because my heart views everything through rose colored glasses.

Love what the other person can't see in themselves. Love them for the person they don't even know they are.