Journal Prompts

Each time I post on here now, I'm going to choose a journal prompt from this list, and write on it. The first prompt written on (24) is crossed out below. I'm choosing a number at random to make sure I am somewhat surprised by the question and by my own answer.

1. If you had a magic wand, and could wave away your problems, what would your life look like? What’s stopping you from being the wand?
2. What are you best at, and what do you love doing most, and how could you spend more time doing both?
3. If you were unapologetically and truly yourself, day in and day out, and if you fully accepted and loved yourself, what would change for you moving forward?
4. What makes your heart sing loudest? What makes your heart beat strongest?
5. What do you believe that no longer serves you? What do you believe that might be holding you back?
6. What does love mean to you?
7. How do you define success, and how will you know when you have it?
8. Where do you see yourself in 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months? Be specific.
9. What are the ten smallest, most minor, most insignificant things in your life that you are grateful for?
10. What have been the five best days of your life, and why?
11. How would your life be different if you stopped living so much in the past and/or worrying so much about the future?
12. What scares you the most, and why? How can you use that fear to improve or learn or grow?
13. What would you tell your five-year-old self?
14. What are three things that you are really looking forward to the most?
15. Who do you need to forgive, and why, and what’s stopping you from doing it today?
16. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be and what’s stopping you from taking action?
17. How would your life change if you were your own biggest fan and truly believed in yourself?
18. What is the best advice you have ever been given?
19. How do you deal with helplessness, with letting go, with release and surrender of expectations?
20. What do you love most about yourself?
21. Who do you admire most in this world, and why?
22. What are five things you absolutely, positively, totally want to do before you die, and how can you do one of them THIS YEAR?
23. Who do you care about most in the world, and what could you do today to make sure they know it?
24. What would you truly lose, deep down, if you lost what you are most scared of losing?
25. What are five things that you love most in the world?
26. What about your life makes you the most proud?
27. When did you hurt most, and how has it helped you or taught you or improved you?
28. What does it mean to be good enough, and how do you know that you are?
29. What did you really love doing as a kid but don’t really do anymore? What is stopping you from doing it now, and what would happen if you did?
30. If you could, what is the one thing you would change about your past?
31. What makes you feel happy to be alive, and how can you make more of that every day?
32. What truth have you been refusing to admit to yourself and how could you face it?
33. What three things could you give up that would give you more time, energy, and peace?
34. What does your ideal day look like? Be specific.
35. What does heroic mean to you, and who are your biggest heroes?
36. What advice would you give yourself five years ago?
37. What do you love most about your life?
38. If you found out that you were going to die tomorrow, what would be your three biggest regrets?
39. What are you the most scared of losing, and what would you truly lose if you lost it?
40. What one event in your life has changed you the most?
41. If you could be president for one day, what would you do, and why?
42. Assuming your life is a story and you are the author, what does your happy ending look like?
43. When are you at your best, and how do you get back there when you feel unbalanced or unwell?
44. How can you improve the way you treat yourself and talk to yourself?
45. When was the last time you cried, and what did it teach you?
46. What is your personal mantra for this year? What one word best describes your best life moving forward?
47. If you could invite five people, living or dead, to dinner at your house one night, who would you choose, and what would you cook them?
48. What are the five most important things in your life right now and how are you prioritizing them (or not)?
49. What makes you the most angry, the most frustrated, the most annoyed, and why?
50. What is something you have never done, but always wanted to do, and what is so important about this for you? 

Journal prompt #24: What would you truly lose, deep down, if you lost what you are most scared of losing?

#24: What would you truly lose, deep down, if you lost what you are most scared of losing?

This journal prompt gives way to the question: what is it you're most sacred of losing? So I need to explore that more deeply.

The obvious answer to what I'm most afraid of losing right now is: Sean. I'm most afraid of losing Sean. Even thought I technically already broke up with him and lost him consequently. Of losing a person who could be it for me. Someone who works on himself, who loves me deeply, who has shown that he changes, who is gentle and kind and compassionate, who works hard, loves animals, wants a lifestyle (outdoors, comfortable, creative), who wants kids and family and traditions, who loves to write and thinks deeply and believes similar things about technology not ruling his life, and who loves my family too.

So, with that first answer...

What would you truly lose, deep down, if you lost what you are most scared of losing?

I would lose the first man I ever loved, who ever loved me and who I ever gave myself so vulnerably to. I would lose the dream of marrying the first man I was with. I would lose the dream of soul mates, like we thought we were. Maybe, ultimately, I would lose the confidence that someone could love me in spite of all of my flaws; in spite of the fact that I am imperfect and I hurt him, and I wasn't always a nice person. I would lose the love of someone who loved me so unconditionally I began to crave the unconditional love because I didn't give it to myself. It became a fix that I craved, to have Sean reassure me and tell me he loved me no matter what, because he was saying what I craved to hear from myself. 

What I would really lose is affirmation--constant affirmation; of my beauty, my talents, my goodness, my desirability. And, again, because I don't give it to myself easily or often, it would feel like I was losing the wave of love that I had come to depend on to feel whole and stable.

I would really lose, ultimately, the confirmation that someone could and would come in and "save" me and fill a "void".

I never used to think I actually believed that shit. But I think I did and maybe do--given that it takes a while to work through something like that.

These are what I think I would truly lose, deep down, if I lost what I am most scared of losing.

Alabama Hills

Frosty walks with my love and a brown-eye-blue-eyed pup

Missed Alarm

Today was supposed to be my second day of subbing, but I missed my alarm. I'm bummed about it, but also not freaking out. It's nice to have time off, sleep in, etc.

I'm deciding not to feel guilty about it, but to just move forward and schedule one for tomorrow.

Maybe I should get my planner out and put a few things in there.

I really need to start working again and getting things into gear.

Bella is barking like crazy. Not sure why.

Dream -- Sunday, December 30th, 2017 -- Last Day of the Year

Last night I dreamt I went on a choir trip, but forgot my passport, forgot my pants, shirts, shoes, and choir dress. I was so stressed and knew I had to tell my choir director, but somehow when it was finally the time, one of my friends (who I know in real life and was in choir with me), handed me the phone to talk with him, but it was instead a guy in the choir (one of the leaders of the bass/tenor section) and he wasn't helpful at all.

The entire dream I just remember being stressed and worrying about the fact that I hadn't brought the right things.

And on top of that in I realized that I didn't have very much money to buy new things.

I think my dad suggested that I just leave, but that didn't seem like a great option since I would have to pay for a plane flight back and I didn't have money.

Post-Christmas Aftermath

This Christmas was the first Christmas in a long time that I can remember where I feel like a semi-truck bulled me over and I'm in the ICU for the long-haul (haha -- jokes).

I dunno what the special combination of things was, but man-oh-man, it was a doozy. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I am a people pleaser and I absolutely don't know how to not let people have their tussles and for it to be okay that things aren't okay. And maybe it has to do with the fact that when you bring a partner into your family, you are so aware of how comfortable that person is (or is not), and if people are getting along and enjoying them.

All of that to say -- even though this Christmas was a little overwhelming, the day after Christmas was actually the perfect antidote to being in my head.

The whole day I spent with myself.

I read. I took a long bath. And I went outside into the frosted, misty, winter-y woods and took photos and galavanted around barefoot and breathed fresh oxygen into my legs, and lungs, and soul.

It felt like breathing all the way in and exhaling all the way out -- and I haven't felt that in a while.

I think I need to set aside more alone time. I forget how valuable and important that is for me sometimes.

I've come to find

that if I don't start my mornings somewhat early and with some amount of purpose and vigor, I don't start my day -- ever. I stay in pjs and messy hair and a sleepy face.

Right now I am reading Esther Perel's book "The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity".

I'm not sure if reading about affairs and their inner-workings is making me feel more confident and okay with the nebulousness and potential of anyone in the world having an affair (happy, unhappy, open relationship or closed), or if it makes me feel like the world is off it's rocker -- screwed. Stupid.

The thing about me when I'm in a place of uncertainty in life -- such as this moment when I am back living at my parents house having finished school, waiting to sub and then waiting to have enough money from subbing to get board certified and then get a MT job -- I want to change everything in my life. I want to control it all. Pick up marble after marble of uncertainty and hold them in my fists for safekeeping. But inevitably it ends up being that I can't control that many marbles of uncertainty and when I pick up one I drop another, and the more I recognize I can't hold, can't control, the more panicked I get and the more I try to pick them up and tighten my grip on them.

Do you think it's true that some people are better at living with uncertainty? Some people are more adapted to or biologically programmed for living in a state of perpetual uncertainty?

Or is that more of a primitive human thing and everyone has it and some people are just better at making themselves practice living in that place of uncertainty?

I guess I could try and do that. Try and give myself exercises to practice being okay with not knowing and not being able to control outcomes.

But here's the thing. I'm sort of a contradiction; a walking oxymoron. At the same time that I fear uncertainty and not knowing what the hell life holds or even the next day, I ALSO really love mystery. It's why I love music. It's why I love big beautiful things like the stars, Crater Lake, love, eyes, ship wrecks and unexplored land. The uncertainty is also the gleeful excitement that "anything could happen".

What a weird place to be in. On one hand I am trying to mitigate potential for things happening that I don't know so that bad things won't possibly happen. And on the other I am craving the unknown and it's spontaneous ways because it can be some of the most exciting/fulfilling stuff.

I guess it comes down to me deciding how I want to spend my time, and what I want to build towards.

It goes back to the quote that I used in my final presentation for my music therapy internship:

“Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.” -- Lao Tzu

I want to be soft and yielding, curious (exploring the rock, accepting it, enveloping it into my life as a reality), and strong. Water wears away at rock.

Dear Ellie,

Trust yourself.

Trust that you aren't trying to escape. That you aren't procrastinating. That you haven't "lost vision".

This time to take care of yourself -- rest, re-set, allow your mind and body to just "be" -- isn't you being lazy or backing out.

Rest is a necessary part of life, and you haven't had much of it the last year or so.

Don't let others words and thoughts and expectations fill you with guilt and shame about where you are.

Stay true to yourself. As Brene Brown says -- don't be afraid to explore and wander into the Wilderness alone.

Take a deep breath. Exhale. Take another deep breath.

Forgive.

Smile.

You are your response to events, words, circumstances -- not others' projections of you. Stick it out.

Move forward with confidence, peace, and excitement for the future.

You are a badass.

You have a mother f-ing supreme work ethic.

You have more vision and purpose than anyone could dream residing in your Ellie-being.

Trust that -- again. Trust yourself. Trust the path God has led you down. Open your heart, don't close down. Allow for that vulnerability. Allow for the light.

Now move, girl, move like the wind, on and away from this thought, this feeling, this moment.

The halfway line

At the halfway line for my internship. Which means that I still have another 3 months (ish) to go before I complete it. After that, it's the board certification exam. And then I have absolutely no fucking idea.

What has happened to me over the years? Where has my happiness gone? My optimism? My childlike curiosity?

It feels like the combination of growing up, mixed with money, mixed with life, mixed with I don't know what just what has made me into a freaking cynical bastard.

I don't want to be that. I want to enjoy the world around me. I want to be in awe of beautiful things. I want to laugh and smile and giggle and have such a ball that my stomach aches from the laughter and the smiling and the giggling and the ball of it all.

I say "I want" a lot these days. More than I think I did when I was a kid. Which is ironic considering I need less than I did as a kid. I required more from the world as a kid. Now I ask for more, even though I'm actually quite equipped to just, I dunno. Make life for myself. Live on my own. Do stuff.

Within the last year it seems that I have felt this funneling, this requirement to go one direction, to make life happen in a certain way. And it scares me. Scares the shit out of me. Because what happens if it goes the wrong way? What happens if after all the funneling I get out on the other side of the tunnel that leads one way and find out I took the wrong tunnel?

IS there a wrong tunnel?

Is that just a stupid idea -- that we're "supposed" to do something in particular; make some sort of impact, be some sort of special, contribute some sort of gift?

I dunno man. It's a freaking lot of pressure.

I'm gonna go for a walk.

Soft focus, round contentment

Sometimes I feel so incredibly settled. As if the world had been in a shadow and flipped around to face the sun; and I could feel it on my skin, and my lips, and the tops of my feet. The contentment rising up in me. When all is beautiful, all people are beautiful.

The world feels round then - and whole. No sharp edges or places to fall off. Just a round softness - spinning, spinning, carefully holding little souls to her surface; nurturing them, blessing them, allowing her winds to stroke their swirling locks of hair.

If only the world always felt round. If only the sun always seemed to kiss heads and hum with happiness. If only I could stay right there, stand right there, be right there, reside right there.

A quote from The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel speaking of the initial culture shock and sensory overload of India:

"Initially you're overwhelmed. But gradually you realize it's like a wave. Resist, and you'll be knocked over. Dive into it, and you'll swim out the other side"

I believe this must be applicable to anything that scares us; culture, change, love, new experiences... Resist, and you will be knocked over.

Dive into it, and you'll swim out the other side.

Talking Long

I have this friend, a girl, who I can talk with for long, long, long amounts of time and I don't feel exhausted or like looking for a way to duck out of the conversation. Literal hours can go by and I won't have thought once, "gosh, I just want to escape this conversation. PLEASE get me OUT of this." And that doesn't happen often. Conversation with people can be so hugely draining. With some people you smile too much, search too hard for topics, ask too many questions, don't know when to pause or when to speak, how much to tell, or when to stop. And then with people like my friend, I never have to think about what we're going to speak of next, or how to phrase my question, or if my words are coming out sounding intelligent. I speak and I feel heard, I listen and I enjoy it. That connection feels really valuable. To find verbal connections with people on that level with that ease is a gift. A gift I am taking full stock of and bending my head with appreciation for tonight.

Things I Learned/Re-Learned From My Boston/New York Trip

Less internet is more.

• Meaning: I'm not thinking about virtual, often inane issues, opinions, and likes during my day, and suddenly I'm living my life in whatever Ellie-way is most fulfilling. 

Giving is always good.

• Meaning: even if I'm not sure if the homeless person I am giving the money to is going to use it to help themselves, it's still a good thing to give the money if it is coming from place of unconditional love.

Stay active during the day, sleep during the night.

• Meaning: my body functions best when it rises with the light, and shuts down with the night. Fighting real and natural sleep by watching a screen projecting a fake reality is ridiculous. Sitting around during the day and avoiding the world and the people in it is not fulfilling; being with and around people is sometimes so, so hard, but ultimately relationship with a real human - even bad relationship - is more fulfilling than relationship with a screen.

Defining myself really isn't as important as I make it out to be.

• Meaning: I don't need to know what I think about everything. I don't need to know "who I am". Go back to the stay active and in relationship with people and place and it'll all be okay.

Decide to be brave.

• Meaning: facing my fears and daily anxieties is legitimately scary as hell, but how else to move forward?

Lastly - do things I love.

• Meaning: no one knows the joys and sorrows of my heart the way I do. Seek what makes me come alive.

"The gentleman and his wife have been reunited"

We had a missing person today for about two minutes. An elderly man, 76 yrs old, wearing a blue shirt. His wife said he went down the trail to go on a boat tour and hadn't come back up yet.

One of the rangers replied back saying that he had been on her boat tour and he was walking up with her just then.

Once they reached the top the ranger radioed in, "The gentleman and his wife have been reunited".

And I thought that was a very nice thing.

Fall things worth taking note of:

1. Auburn leaves
2. Earl Grey tea
3. Old fashioned books
4. Knitted sweaters
5. Comfy socks
6. Rumbling thunder from billowy clouds
7. Birdsong before and after storms
8. Crisp air
9. Nostalgia
10. Apple picking
11. Pie baking
12. Cider pressing
13. Instrumental music
14. Soft blankets
15. Poofy pillows
16. Leaf pressing
17. Exploring old haunts
18. Late afternoon walks
19. Silent thoughts
20. Hugs
21. Journaling

Hump Day

In unbecoming annoyance, she sat and looked forward.
Behind her sat the day,
Hot and contrasty, longish.

What she wanted was the sun.
What she wanted was the water.
Bliss: what she wanted.

Responsibility held her,
Like a massive spider web;
It held her and it choked her, and it told her what to do.
And she frowned,
Bared her teeth, but said "yes".

For she chose it.
It did not choose her.

Every bird cry was her own.
It sang her her soul, her mood, her anxiousness.
It whistled them down the lane and into the brook and under that sheet of metal,
That rusty sheet of metal that's been there for the summer long.

This day tasted like mango.
It felt like fiberglass.
It looked like what a normal day does.

She wrote it down because she was inspired.
People inspired her.
They "lifted her up",
They "gave her motivation"
They, he, did these things through words.
So in words did she give thanks.

33 minutes till a certain kind of freedom.
32 minutes till a Blazer game
31 minutes till a bathroom break
30 minutes till: radio on, window down, belt the Country Current Hits
29 minutes till a fresh cup of coffee? No.
28 minutes till the family says "hi!" and she says "hello" and drags her things down the flights of steps
27 minutes till she contemplates Pj's or normal clothes?
26 minutes till

Ah hell!

Boss walks down the hall.
Body becomes silent, rigid,
Professionalism: "Yes, have a lovely evening. Still working on that project. Results soon!"

Wednesday - ya ol' lump of difficulty.
Ya ol' lump of partial glee and half disappointment.
Bless you, you hateful thing.

Horses of courses

This happens approximately every six months. Or perhaps every spring. Either or both.

I fall in love with horses.

You'd think I would just go through a little phase, but naw... it comes back time and time again. I don't own a horse. But I know plenty of people who do. Is it abusing our friendship if I ask to come over regularly next summer just so I can ride their horses?

Oh poop. They won't mind...

Sitting on this desk is a half a cup of cold coffee, a textbook opened with the best intentions and ignored with the greatest success, and a notebook with a long, scribbly list featuring, precisely, one thing crossed off.

Sitting on my mind is "It's scary how easy it is to worship people", "I wish work was done", and "Gosh I miss New Zealand".

One tab at a time

Nope. Not talking about bar tabs. Although...I should probably cut those down too. ;)

Today I hopped on the computer to pull up my blog, and immediately after opening a new browser and typing in my blog address I opened a new tab for Facebook, a new tab for Gmail, and a new tab for Twitter.

I then had four tabs up and I clicked back and forth between them for about 5 minutes; waiting for one thing to load as I looked at another for 30 seconds. After those 5 minutes passed I paused and lifted my fingers off the keyboard. I couldn't remember why I had got on the computer. Oh - right! My blog. I quickly scanned my tabs for the title, clicked on it, then paused again.

What the heck, I thought...why do I have so many tabs open? This is so distracting. I can't focus on my blog like this.

So I closed each tab until I had my blog open on one page. And then I focused.

-

If you think I'm going to turn this little story into a life lesson, you would be right.

Too many tabs open  - nothing gets done. Or, more specifically, nothing gets done well. At some point what I thought was excellent multitasking become just poor concentration skills.

I'm for damn sure that I don't want to be mediocre good at lots of things and super-duper good at nothing. I don't want lots of little friendships and no few great ones.

At a gradual rate I began allowing myself to believe that more at once was better than one at once. No more of that.

One tab at a time, young'n. One tab.