The daughter you see isn't the daughter in existence

Rumi said, “Ignore those that make you fearful and sad, that degrade you back towards disease and death.” When it's a parent that's tearing you down, ignoring them can be a hard thing to do. Until a few years ago my dad and I were very close. We talked every other day and we saw each other very frequently, but somewhere in my growing up process during college, we lost that. Our lives are supposed to be fluid like water. We move, swell, expand, churn, and change with each bend, rapid and waterfall. Somewhere in his life, he just stopped moving. He became a rock glued into the muddy bank of the river. Everyone else kept flowing past him, but he refused to move. His little girl grew up, but he couldn't acknowledge that because it would involve shifting from the comfort of his mud cavity in the riverbank. When he looks at me, the daughter he sees isn't the daughter that is in existence. He creates his own image of a person that he can love or be angry at because it is easier than accepting the fluidity of the water around him. He likes to think that his daughter is a quiet little girl; a recluse that will never marry, have friends, or do anything wrong; someone overweight; and as a brainiac, so anytime I try to talk about what is happening in my life, he ignore me. His image of me is comfortable and he can see his own reflection in it, so he won't listen to anything that will force him to abandon this image of me. He wants me to be him so that he won't feel like the only one that is stuck. I can't be around him anymore because after I see him he tears me down so much I feel miserable about myself and start to believe that his image of me is truth. For a long time, I would take the feelings of disease and death when I was around him because he is my dad and family is the most important thing to me, but it has gotten to the point that he wrecks so much havoc on my emotional health that until he choses to see the person that I have become, I am going to have to limit contact with him. I thought that by sticking out the emotional abuse I could pull him out of his rut and get him moving with flow of things again, but he has buried himself so deep in his hole that he won't budge. He has to make the choice to rejoin the flow of water and until he does, he will not keep me there in his hole. I chose the exuberance of life that comes with fluidity over the fear, sadness, death, and disease that comes with stagnance.

Lost is a State of Mind

During the past couple of months I have discovered how much your state of mind reflects the state of your life. I feel like I am traveling in a boat through life's ocean and my mind controls the conditions. When I don't think about where I "should" be or where other people expect me to be, I know my boat is heading in the right direction and I am exactly where I need to be at that moment in time. The second I start to question my decisions about the route I've taken, which primarily occurs after looking at where my peers are or when I think about people's expectations of my voyage, thick fog and tall, powerful waves roll in. The waves toss my boat in every direction and I lose control. The fog limits my visibility, causing navigating to be difficult and I get overwhelmed deciding which direction I should go to get out of the fog. There are so many options and I don't know exactly where I want to end up. The further I think into the future, the more fog rolls in, blanketing me with anxiety. I convince myself that I am lost, so it becomes my reality. When I do stop thinking so much about the future and start enjoying where I am right now, the fog clears and I realize that I'm not actually lost. It was all in my mind. You can't be physically lost because all life is made of is a bunch of experiences. Every experience is beneficial and creates your ocean. Life may take you on a completely different path than what you had originally intended, but you will end up where you need to be. Our journeys are all different, but in the end the ocean brings us to the same place. It is our choice whether we navigate through the fog and waves or through calm water with the sun smiling down upon us.

Planting a Seed and Successfully Growing a Tree

A year and a half ago I planted an acorn. I watered it, nurtured it, and sent it all of my positive energy to it in hopes that it would grow into a beautiful, strong and courageous oak tree. I waited patiently, knowing that the life inside a seed takes time and the right conditions to be awakened, but too much time had gone by without any sign of the acorn ever opening it's eyes to the light of the world. It got to the point where I gave up on my little acorn. I thought I had picked a dud acorn that would never sprout life, so I started looking for a new seed to plant. Months had gone by since I had given up hope on a tree ever growing when an unexpected green sprout started to emerge from the soil. I was so excited when I saw the growth I could hardly contain myself, but I didn't tell many people because it was too early to tell if this sprout was a tree or just a weed. If it was my tree, the timing was perfect. I had just lost my companion and my current scenery was getting to be overly explored. I was ready to dedicate all of my time and energy into this tree and explore all of it's branches. After a week went by, the sprout had grown enough to tell that the growth was indeed a tree. My initial reaction was surprising. I immediately burst into tears, and not tears of joy. They were tears of disappointment. I had been waiting for this moment for a year and a half and it was finally here, so why was I disappointed? I mean what did I expect? An instant full grown tree? It made me question my intention for planting the acorn in the first place. I felt selfish for not wanting to give this tree a chance and I couldn't provide a clear answer of why I didn't want to help this tree grow and reach it's full potential. I wasn't scared of it or unsure if I would be able to make it grow, it just didn't feel right, so I started observing this tree more closely; smelling it, touching it, tasting it, meditating next to it. I was spending so much time with this tree trying to figure out what I was going to do, and I was starting to get sick. While meditating and taking in all of the information I was getting from my observations, it occurred to me that this wasn't my tree. This wasn't the oak I planted, but a juniper which had somehow managed to kill my acorn to make room for itself. Yes, it was a tree, but not my tree, and on top of it all, I'm allergic to junipers. So I was then faced with a choice; do I dedicate 27 months of my life to this tree which needs my help, knowing that those will be the hardest 27 months of my life, but in the end coming out a stronger person or do I plant another seed and wait for my oak tree, the tree that I'm really passionate about? Deep down I knew what my decision would be, but people were playing a huge roll in my decision making process. They thought I was crazy for not wanting to jump at the opportunity to help this tree grow because I should take my chance on this tree while I know there is something growing there. Junipers have branches to explore too, they told me. They didn't understand why I would abandon this tree just because it was making me feel sick. In the end, it is my life and my decision. I don't have a good feeling about this juniper and this isn't a tree that I'm passionate about, so when it comes to helping this tree, I won't be putting all of my energy into making it grow healthy and strong. I would rather plant another acorn and wait for a tree that will I love and want to help, not because I feel obligated to. It will be just as much work and just as hard to get it to grow and flourish, but facing the hardships knowing that the end product will be the beautiful oak I wanted in the first place will make it worth it. In the end, there is someone out there who is really passionate about that juniper and will dedicate themselves to helping that tree reach it's full potential.

Confidence vs. Ego

Confucious describes a superior man as "modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions." Ego is often mistaken as confidence because it is so vocal. Ego has a loud mouth and uses words as a big shield for all of the insercurites that a person possesses. It is easy to hide behind words and to use them to create an image for yourself. Vocalizing what you want to be percieved as forces approval from others, which is necessary for the ego to keep functioning. Without the words as a foundation, the structure of the person crumbles. Confidence, on the other hand, is a silent, free standing structure. It doesn't need words to hold it up. It is the energy a person gives off. Confident people live their lives how they want and don't need the approval of others. They do things because those activities make them happy, not because they have a reputation to uphold. They don't need to tell people how awesome they think they are because they are just happy being. When I think about confidence, the first person that comes to mind is one of my friends from Colorado. He is one of the studliest people I have ever met... Longs Peak trail crew stud, hardcore climber, and crazy thrill seeking extreme sports man, but he doesn't go on and on about how great he is. He's nice to be around because he doesn't make you feel like you're a wimp. Most of the time you would never even know how crazy athletic he is unless you asked him what he did that day. He wouldn't even brag his responce. It would be a no big deal "I decided I would hike 4 peaks today, but then it ended up being a run up 4 peaks because a storm was moving in." He didn't need my approval or look of awe to make the experience worth while. That's a person who's comfortable with themself. It's not the person wandering around pronouncing how attractive they think they are and all the things that they've accomplished. They need their ego to hide behind and because they aren't comfortable with themself and they need the approval of others to make what they did mean anything significant. So now I conclude with this question... If you really think you are attractive or good at something do you really need other people to reassure that fact?

Finding Our True Selves

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.  -e.e. cummings

One of the biggest challenges in life is discovering the people we are rather than creating the people that are acceptable to others. People need to be accepted or perceived as a certain type of person, so instead of just being who we are, we rely possessions and words to define us. We use a label, like "climber," "metal-head," or "artist," to define us. Our lives then revolve around that label. We buy certain things, shop certain places, wear a certain brand of clothing, dye our hair a certain color, and we only partake in activities that are suiting to the image we want to give off. We can basically create a person that we want to be. When I was in Alaska on a NOLS trip, I saw what happens when people are stripped of their labels and material possessions. We were a group of people from different backgrounds sent out to brave the Alaskan wilderness as a team. When we were in the backcountry, you couldn't tell who was the hippie or who was the frat boy. We all looked the same; dirty and wearing rain jackets, hats, hiking pants, and boots. Our looks and our possessions didn't matter. Our true selves were exposed because we didn't have anything to hide behind. We had what we needed to survive and that was it. We didn't talk about who had the most high tech phone or what brand of jeans was our favorite. Those things weren't important anymore, so it opened up the conversation to deep and meaningful subjects. Real friendships were developed based on who we were as people, not by our possessions or our image. After we got back into society after a month, it was weird seeing everyone dressed in their everyday clothes and talking about the car they owned or the job they had to go back to. It was like that wasn't them. It was then I learned that people who live off of the bare minimum are their true selves. Possessions and labels don't define them, they are just living and being. Living in nature with the bare minimum is key in overcoming the challenge of discovering our true selves. When you have nothing to hide behind, all that is left is you.

Sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead

I read once that the hurt of letting a person walk out of your life shouldn't leave a scar or sway you from leaving them, but rather make you realize that if you wanted to be with the wrong person so bad, how beautiful it will be when the right person comes along. Letting the wrong person go is hard. There is so much pain involved and fear of what life will be like when that person is gone, especially if that person has been in your life for a while. We get into a routine and settling for familiar or comfortable is easier than the risk of never finding love again. We stay in relationships with the wrong person and tolerate being treated poorly because we don't want to be alone, we are manipulated into believing no one else will love us, we think we will never feel that way about anyone else, for financial reasons, or we like the image of the relationship. I don't know what real love looks like for everyone, but I can say that real love manifests when there are no selfish feelings involved and when any image of what we want the person to be or what we want to portray to the people around us disappears. Real love doesn't ask whats in it for me. It occurs when manipulation stops and when we think more about the other person than about his or her reactions to us, giving unconditionally because we love the person, not because we want the person to love us. The other person's happiness is just as important as our own. We accept another for their true self and don't twist them to create our own version of the person. We love them for their real image rather that the reflection of ourselves that we find in them. We all deserves real love and it is out there for anyone willing to find it. The pain of leaving the wrong person will be worth it when we find the right person and get a taste of what real love feels like. We just have to find courage to leave an unsatisfactory relationship. There will always be love waiting for us and when we are ready to find it, it will come into our lives. We just have to let the wrong person walk out of our lives to make room for the beauty of the right person.

I am not a Robot

It's easy to go through life on autopilate. When life gets hard, it takes little work to fall into a routine and walk mindlessly through each day. It doesn't take more than a minimal amount of energy to roll out of bed in the morning, go for the daily run on the same route, go to a dead end job that takes no brain power to do, come home and spend time with a significant other that you are settling for, go to bed and then do it all again the next day. This lifestyle is comfortable because it's stagnant and there are no risks. We are guarenteed to succeed because there are no challenges to bring us down. Why try something new when you know you can do the things that you are doing? When we start setting goals, trying new things, and breaking out of the routine, there is a fear of failure or a fear of the unknown. Lately I've been finding myself falling into this routine. My life has been stagnant the past couple of months and I have myself to blame. I have a list of goals about ten goals and I've only started working towards the ones that take the littlest amount of energy and don't diverge far from my normal routine. I look at the list every day and expect that just reading them is going to magically make them happen. Unfortunately that's not how it works. I'm not going to wake up one day without ever practicing and be able to play the mandolin or go out climbing after no training and be able to clean send a 5.11. Goals take work and you have to put energy towards them. I'm usually a very goal driven person. When I set my mind to something, I make it happen, but after the recent Peace Corps disappointment, I got so down that I felt like I wasn't capable of doing anything. I looked at my list of goals and they seemed impossible and like routes to failure and more disappointment. Routine was easier than figuring out how to accomplish my goals. My comfort zone wasn't a happy place to be, but at least there was no disappointment. I settled for the robotic lifestyle until recently I was going for a long bike ride and I realized that the human mind is designed to be in constant change. We are suppose to learn and push the boundaries of our comfort zone to live a completely statisfying life. The times I have been the happiest in my life have been times that I have overcome conflict and accomplished one of my goals. Being a robot was more devistating to my mental health than any sort of failure. Fighting to make our goals happen may be hard at first and there will be challenges. We may even fail, but staying dedicated and pushing forward will pay off with time and changes will start to occur and there will be success. The trick is knowing that failures teach us how to find success. Success is always there, it may just take some extra searching to find. In the words of Confucious, "When it is obvious that the goals can't be reached, don't adjust the goals, adjust the action steps."