New Beginnings.

I love this blog.

Like, a lot.

It has seen me through some really formative years.

Sometimes I think you outgrow good things though. You reach a point where you're ready for a new beginning...

www.tagsandfeathers.blogspot.com

Aroha

Week three: Creativity

For this last week, the energy I decided to focus on in myself was creativity.

I have always had some artistic skill-practical application of that skill sometimes is a bit harder for me. But you know what? The universe gave me a talent, I better start using it, huh? I tried to be creative in multiple ways instead of just drawing a picture every day, I even was creative in cooking (I didn't use a recipe or anything one night)! Instead of telling you about it, I documented my experiences. Everyone has to start somewhere!!

Inspiration.

My heart is aching for nature. Winter just doesn't have the same place in my heart as summer...

Week 2: Understanding

Two weeks in a row of resolution keeping is probably a new record for me. Let's all take a moment to appreciate this moment....

Alright, so calm energy was a pretty great week. I felt a shift in myself and I even had someone comment on Ollie being better behaved. *Disclaimer-that is not to be taken as he is well behaved, just better behaved.* The next area of focus for me?

Understanding.

This wasn't something that I thought I had an issue with, I was fairly confident that I was the most understanding person on Earth, duh. Then this issue started coming up across the board with people around me. Things started getting wild in my life, and as I was making decisions that I knew in my gut to the be the right ones for me, people around me were having a hard time accepting them. My instant reaction? To take offence...every...single...time. I have been getting my knickers all up in a twist lately about people judging and not giving my choices and the people involved in them the benefit of the doubt. If these people really love me and think that I have my head on straight, they should just trust me, right?

Then it dawned on me, I am constantly judging people and you can't be understanding of others if you're critiquing their lives. I don't think that it comes from a bitchy place inside, more of a social one. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a super private person. Lately though, this whole "open book" philosophy has kind of bitten me in the ass. Along with being so open with my life, comes welcoming the backlash of people's opinions. Why is this suddenly an issue twenty-four years in? I haven't ever been in a relationship with someone that I see a long term (lifetime?) commitment with. I've had such limited relationships with people previously that any "history" with those people haven't really mattered. I've just always shared everything about those flings with my people.

Now, in hind sight, I wish that I wouldn't have been so open about things with the boyfriend. But who knew that this guy had staying power? That on top of the fact that a lot of intense shit went down within the first six months has just been a recipe for disaster. Do I wish that I would have handled the situation differently? Yes. If I had the chance to do it all again, I would keep my private life more private (there's a new concept), but you know what? That had never been a real issue for me before. Lesson learned. As far as I'm concerned, I've moved on.

Well, good for me, but that doesn't change the fact that people in my circle have already formed their own opinions. I have spent countless hours stressing about changing their minds about my life and where I'm aiming it. I want everyone to be as ok as I am with my choices. 

It hasn't been working. 

Turns out I can't will them to comply. 

So, the way I see it, I can either keep on obsessing about having their whole hearted (and not completely fake) blessings, or I can just chalk it up to a lesson learned and change myself so that it isn't a wasted opportunity. 

I'm a major contributing factor in this entire mess that I'm sat in the middle of. Clearly, I don't want to stay here. I can't do any more damage control than I have already done, so I'm moving on. I don't ever want someone who has confided in me about an issue in their life to feel like I'm not supportive of them. It's not necessarily a feeling that I'm crazy about myself. I also don't want people to stop telling me things because they're afraid that I won't be able to not be judgmental. So I have to be understanding. The whole "walk a mile in their shoes" thing all of a sudden hits really close to home. We are all doing the very best that we can on our own journeys, the last thing any of us need is to be beaten down by those close to us.

So the goal for this week/I feel like I should make this one a lifetime thing, is to work on simply not "catch up" about others with third parties. The basics are just fine, but anything that is remotely personal is off of the discussion table. Is this going to change the dynamic of some regular lunch dates in my life? Yeah it is, I'm going to have to Google some random conversation topics or something, but I know deep down that this is going to be a change for the better for me, and really, I want to be freakin awesome, not just mediocre.

Word.

New Year. New Air. New Me?

I know that what I'm about to say sounds so typical this time of year, but I'm going to say it anyways. I decided that this year I'm going to work on becoming a better me. That involves mentally progressing as well as physically. There was once a time when my good friends Jade and Jamie and I all used to go to the gym all of the time and I was getting into pretty great shape. Then I just stopped. That's what happens when you start dating someone I guess, it's all about nights in with pizza and beer, also known as a healthy lifestyle killer. 

I'm paying for it now. I'm in probably the worst shape that I've ever been in my whole life. I'm not loving it. I'm actually hating it. I didn't want to lay out some complicated game plan for myself that I was never going to follow and then feel bad about it tomorrow when I eat some chocolate. So I'm taking a new approach, and I'm not going to lie, I'm terrified by it. I took "before" pictures yesterday afternoon. I have never done that before. I'm giving myself until my birthday and then I'm going to post my "after" pictures on here. Shit just got real. I'm telling the world online so that I'm held accountable. Oh geez....

I decided that  a good place to start would be a nice hike with Ollie and Zachary on the 1st. It was fantastic, we actually made it all the way to Elephant Rock IN THE SNOW. Neither of us had ever realized that people still go outside in the winter? It's a new concept, but I'm liking it so far. One of the best things that we realized on the hike? Our lungs didn't hurt. We were above all of this crappy air that we've been inhaling for weeks now. Going out was easily the best decision I've made all year. 

We learned that my dog is a model. He posed for TONS of pictures perfectly.

We reached the top!

Do you see that gunk cloud that is hanging over the valley? Ew.

Week 1: Calm Energy

So, this New Years, my resolution is to get my energy back under control. That doesn't mean that I'm trying to calm down. I'm talking about my whole energy. My aura if you will. Because when I started thinking about the last year, I can't help but admit that the mood I have carried with me for the majority of the year has been chaotic. (I apologize to all those poor people that I was closely associated with, that shit really rubs off on others.) I don't want to be that girl. I want to be the other girl, you know, the one who is always super happy and just radiates sunshine out of her ass.

So I've come up with a game plan. For the next year (or as long as resolutions usually last...) I'm going to focus on cultivating different energy in myself. I'm going to change it up every week as well, because no one wants to have the same energy all of the time.

The first energy that I'm working on? Calm energy. I'm not going to lie, I picked this one first for Ollie as much as myself. That dog just soaks up however I'm feeling. If I'm agitated, he's agitated. If I'm relaxed he is too (unless there's a tennis ball around, then not so much). I end up getting frustrated with him and he reads that and becomes upset as well and then we are just a right old mess.

Well, that's the case no more! From now on (or the next week at the very least) we are going to be the epitome of peace and serenity. 

Namaste Olympus.

We truly are twins.

Links, links, links...

Shut up guys, remember this post from February 2012? (You probably don't, and even though it wasn't an epic blog post, it was something that I was very passionate about.) It was clearly a premonition on my part. 

(The following is a brief inner workings of my mind tour.)

Yesterday I was feeling really blah. I'm over waiting for things to happen. Waiting for Christmas. Waiting for Florida. Waiting for everything *said in an overly dramatic tone*. Then my sister brought the moon water inside from the night before. (Moon water 101 link) which got me started thinking about how out of balance I am right now. That thought process led me to remember when I was little and discovered this guy on Reading Rainbow. It was then that I knew I had a past life. That thought process led me to discover this book that I have been reading/taking to heart. It talks about how we all need to live in harmony with nature and our environment in order to grow and be at peace in life. Then I watched a documentary called Kingdom of the Blue Whale tonight on National Geographic Wild and that brought me back to my post from almost two years ago. 

At the time that I wrote that post, I would take the book Oceana to work at the bank and leave it open on the counter next to me so that I could read it in between clients-I was obsessed. I wanted so badly to hop on the "ocean conservation" bandwagon and move to the coast to make a difference. The major problem that I ran into at the time was that I was living in Utah. Utah just happens to be a landlocked state...but now I am going to be living right on the coast. Granted it isn't the coast that I was hoping for, I was thinking more along the lines of California, but it's the coast of the ocean.

Oceana website and video

^This^ is the organization that sparked my interest in ocean conservation. (I saw Ted Danson talk about this on the Ellen show, so really I have Ellen to thank for all good things in my life, that's why I think that she should be our next president..side note.) Before I read this book I found the ocean completely terrifying. I was that girl that didn't live anywhere near the ocean but had legitimate nightmares when she was younger about sharks. I just don't really love the fact that there are parts (ok, most) of the ocean that I can't see from my vantage point on the surface. There is no way to know what is stalking you from down there. No bueno. Then I read this book and had an "a ha" moment realizing that there is a bit more to the ocean ecosystem than sharks and whales. There's actually quite a bit going on down there. 

Skip ahead a year and a half and I found myself a guy whose family pretty much lives on the ocean in Florida. I don't mean that they sometimes visit the beach and splash around. I mean that he works on boats at the marina where they fish for things-not lake things like in Utah-but ocean things, like rays and stuff when they have down time. I mean that for fun outings they go out in a boat shark fishing, who does that? The people that I'm going to be spending a lot of time with for the next little while is who. 

It's funny how the universe sets us on paths that we don't understand at the time, but prepare us for the future isn't it?  

To wrap this entire post up, I am so excited to be able to spend more time getting to know the ocean and all of the crazy a*% stuff that's floating around down there!! I'm about to take the term "animal lover" to a whole new extreme. 

(The bf already told me that we could not in fact keep the small shark that he caught the other day in our bathtub. We'll see how long he can hold his ground...) 

I imagine that this is a routine sight when you live on the coast.
Those dolphins better not disappoint.