Stop that!

You ever picture someone punching you in the face? Mentally picture it. What did you get? Fear? Anticipation of pain? Anger? Punishment? Really, what would come to your mind if you knew you were about to get punched in the face?

Ya know what's come to my mind this week dear reader? Shit just like that. Except... and this is completely honest... I would welcome it this week. Oh please just punch me in the face so I can have something to point to and say, 'That's whats wrong! I've been punched in the face!' At times this week I've even wanted it so that I could then lash out at something. 'You there! Face puncher! Prepare to die!'

But no... none of that is happening. In fact dear reader I for once come to this blog with no idea what the conclusion will be. Right now I'm standing on the edge of a downward spiral looking over the edge and yelling 'Fuck you! I'm not going down there!'

Hold on! Hold on! None of this is making any sense... okay, let me try and explain. This past week I've just been angry. I've been busy minded, angry, and negative! And I just keep catching myself and saying, 'No! Stop that! Ask for help and ask to see this differently. This is not who I am and these are not the mindsets that I want.'

Whew! Right?

Wrong! They just keep coming back! I can feel great for a few post forgiveness moments, a few seconds of relief and then... boom! Back they come. Just an angry little (ego) dwarf living in there this week. He's running around smashing into everything and calling it everyone else's fault. Screw those people or damn that guy... blah blah blah. Just an angry little negative ball of shit this week.

So why? No seriously, that's my question! Last week was great, positive, up beat, loving the sunshine and birds singing... Nothing set me off, no incident of disaster, no major changes to my external world... nothing. Just woke up one morning and decided fuck this place, I want to be angry.

Well let me tell you it suuuuuucks! I've been over it for days now, but for some reason can't seem to shake it. Just keeps coming back.

It comes down to: is this a question of 'Be where you are' or 'Change your mind, change your life'?

I've tried changing my mind and the little fucker keeps changing right back. I've tried chasing it down the hall way to see where it goes and it never goes anywhere except made up narratives about the world punching me in the face. (Thank goodness I was able to bookend that otherwise this post would have made no sense whatsoever.)

Fuck it! The point here is I've got no point. I'm just at a shitty little place in my life and today I felt like sharing that. I'll get over it. I'll take it to God and he'll help me because I've asked for it. I'll give over the burdens and I'll get back to working on the larger questions of life. Maybe in my quest to 'Get back to the basics' I've gone back to a base emotion. Maybe that's it and this is where I get to decide I don't like this and don't want to come back. Maybe...
Either way, this is a tough one for me and I just wanted to share it with anyone who would listen, and today dear reader... that's you.

Edit: Some two hours later I read this:
"The unhealthiest thing you can do with anger is to deny you have it. The miraculous perspective is not to pretend you're not angry, but rather to say, 'I'm angry but I'm willing not to be. Dear God, please show me what it is I'm not seeing." Marianne Williamson.

Bob Ross-n' like a champ

Ok, so some of you may know, some of you may have even seen... I got into painting this last year part out of necessity and part out of the fun of creating shit. So this weekend I decided to do another one and thought I'd share my "process" with you.
Hope you enjoy it!

So last year I tried to get messy and just paint something random. I kind of fail at that and the result was...

Hated it!

So this weekend, I painted over the whole thing in black to mask all that color and then started a new painting over the old. With some help from YouTube and some layering tutorials I did this:

So I wanted some background color, hence this base of some red and purple/blue.

However, I'm doing a night scene for my bedroom, so I want that cloudy nighttime look

Here I added some landscaped hills at the bottom and the start of a moon.

Added the details of the moon...

Then added a tree and a bit more detail on the landscape.

Now in the actual finished product the colors show through a bit more than they do here, and the whole thing is a bit brighter; but... you get the point. 

Hope you enjoyed painting with me!!! 

Have a little faith in time?

Time isn't real, let's get that out of the way first...

Okay. Now that we've accepted that premise, we can move on. Anyway, one year ago today my world got flipped over and all the nasty little bits that were hiding under the stoic rock that was me were exposed to the light and had to start scrambling for safety. Unfortunately for them, there was nowhere to go and some real cleaning out had to be done.

I'd love to sit here and tell you that I'm enlightened and all has become clear after a year of work, but that's obviously not the case since I'm sitting here typing a blog. What is real is this:
- It was a tough year.
- I did a ton of self examination.
- I did too much self examination and not enough self-shifting change.
- I did a lot of forgiveness on myself, others, and the world around me.
- I still have so much forgiveness to do.
- It was a good year.
- Looking back on it like a "spiritual and growth stock ticker"; my stock has risen a ton!
- I feel great about my life right now.
- I feel like there is a lot of work to do in my life right now.

What's Now? Now my life is like watching a coin flip though the air. I can see heads, tails, heads, tails, good, bad, good, bad, change, stagnation, change, stagnation, openness and defensiveness. As I watch my life sail through the air, I'm trying to focus on the heads (good) things that are happening and calling a heads into my life all the time. However, when a tails (bad) aspect comes up, I try not to judge it as "bad" but forgive and move on. What I've come to realize is that every shift is just another flip of the coin. Ever choice is a coin flip and I have to have faith that God will let me land on heads if I just let Him, and that when a tails comes up, it's just another lesson to learn from and move on.

"Work the lessons. Not just those in the ACIM Workbook, but all the lessons that come to you. The people, events, and experiences that show up in your world are not random. They are orchestrated by a Higher Power that loves you in ways you do not understand. At every moment God is extending a hand to you to lift you out of quicksand and onto higher ground. Stop fighting life and let it love you. Miracles are seeking you. Now you must let them find you." -Alan Cohen

Yep. That. Thank you Mr. Cohen.
I've given up so much control over what happens in my life these days that it really just seems like the day does what it wants and I'm just here to move along in it. I still keep a schedule and show up to my job on time, but as far as how that goes... hell I have no idea. Like I've said in previous posts, I'm done playing by the rules of what "should/can" or "should/can not" happen and just starting being. I'm just now starting to figure the difference between what I want and what God wants. I'm just now starting to figure out how close those things are to one another and what is required of me to let go of my ego's desires. I'm just now figuring out how great things are going for me once I get the hell out of my own way. It may have taken all the "bad" things that happened to get to this point. I even had to repeat last year's lesson again, but... I believe in me. God believes in me. My teacher and my friends believe in me. And I believe that one year from now, that stock ticker is going to be so so much higher.

I believe that everything is going to be just fine and just the way it should be.
That's a sentence that I could not have written one year ago today.

Progress, if you want to call it that, comes slow, fast, or all at once. But as long as you're progressing dear reader; celebrate it!

"Faith is the bird
that feels the light
and sings when the dawn is still dark."
-Tagore

Don't Grieve Your Grievances -and- Life Comes Easy

What? Hang on... I'll explain that.

Welcome to 'What's Now' where once again I come to you as a student finding shit out about myself, trying to learn from it, and then somewhat reporting that here to you dear reader.

This week my theme has been grievances. Holding grudges, holding on to past insults, past slights, past "mistakes", and past pains. It's amazing how when you sit around looking at the past how much you have to forgive.
- Oh man, that one night when so and so said _____ and then I did ____.
- I used to get into so many confrontations with _____ over ______.
- I thought ______ about _____ the whole time and never realized it.
- _______ always brought up _____ in me and I resented it.
- I'm constantly thinking about _____ and it occupies so much of my mind space.

The above is not some spiritual Mad Lib but rather thought process that are home to my grievances. It's literally insane! This week I've opened up to not just letting these thought come in and pass through my mind but rather holding onto them for just long enough to say, 'No. I don't want this. I want to forgive this thought or this mindset and then truly and permanently let it go.' I don't want to find myself still being upset over past thoughts ten years, weeks, days or even minutes from now. I want now! I want to take things as they are now. Myself included. So much of the forgiveness process is self-forgiveness since it is only I that am upset here. I can release grievances and forgive others, but I also have to forgive myself for how I feel about any given situation or grievance as well.

"When you accept 100% of the responsibility for the choices you have made, you gain 100% of the power to make new and better choices." -Alan Cohen.

Sometimes poking around in your mind for how you really feel about something can be a bit scary. Sometimes I find myself going, 'Jeez man. That's dark... or that's kind of messed up.' But, that's how my ego is playing the game. 'Look. Look. This is you! You're really a bad person and you should feel guilty about this! Look how you've treated others and yourself. Look at how you keep making these same mistakes. This is who you are. You're not ever going to be able to shake this! You're 35 years old and this is where you are...again.'

Not so fast! There is a way out of this: Forgiveness.
"Forgive and Forget" maybe the phrase, but I prefer to look at it as "Forgive and Move on." Move. Move forward and move on to the next thing that you need to forgive. I have the power to make different choices. I can do that. So... what's the hold up?

Life Comes Easy.

The hold up is fear. The hold up is living by a set of laws and rules that I've created and don't even realize half the time that I'm adhering to. Forgiveness is great. It's chipping away at the past and guiding me into the present. The future is not mine to be concerned with. Now. Now is my concern. However, in order for me to shake the laws of the past, I must make different choices now in order to carry those over to the future.

Ever hear someone tell you that life is a struggle? Of course you have. We all have. You have to go to work, pay your bills... death and taxes... grind it out... blah blah blah. Where the fuck did those rules come from? Did I sign up for this? When was the contract written that says I have to struggle to get what I want? I know I've clearly been living by those rules. I've been playing my role and my parts in whatever situations I've found myself in order to play by these perceived rules. Oh hell, I've run all over the world playing by these rules! I'm a rule follower and a good student, and a good citizen, a good man, a hard worker, I'm all these things that I'm 'supposed' to be.

So quick question... am I happy?




(Let that hang a bit... really ask the question....)




Hmmmm.... Nope!

Okay then! So, fuck your rules and let's make some different choices in life. How about instead of acting a certain way in a certain situation, you just act the way you always do all the time? How about instead of looking outside yourself for happiness, you look inside? How about letting other people know what you're really thinking and feeling instead of constantly fearing judgment and rejection? How about just opening up and letting abundance come to you rather than trying to grind it out of life? How about you just be happy, be balanced, be at peace, be you as God intended?

Well well... we're on the path to tearing up some of life's "rules" and on to a much more natural state.
- I am happy.
- I am loved.
- I am at peace.
- I am open.
- I am honest.
- I am forgiving.
- I am connected to my source and my creator at all times.

We're starting here. Right here. Really simple, back to the basics. I'm tearing up old contracts that I never signed up for. I'm not re-writing rules because there are no rules. I'm erasing past grievances and past roles. Now is all that matters. Who I was, who they were, what I said or thought, what they said or thought... all the way back as far as I can remember... forgiven, moved on from. That's the goal here!

I do right here at the end have to share a bit of a story with you dear reader. A lot of this came when I was squatting on the floor in my apartment. Yeah you read that right, squatting. Sitting in a chair is not a natural human resting position. Squatting with both feet flat on the floor is. It may "look funny" to you because we've been trained our whole lives that sitting in a chair is proper and "natural." It is not. I was thinking about that when it just carried over to everything else. Squatting there on the floor, thinking about life I thought, 'How much other shit in my life do I believe is the right thing to do when in fact it's complete bullshit? How many other things have I been trained to believe that are utter nonsense? What else do I think is the right and 'natural' thing to do when in fact it is not?"

Life is hard? Fuck that. Life comes easy.
Other people do things to me and hold me back? Hell no. I do all that to myself.
Your mistakes are unforgivable? Nope. Everything is forgivable.
You have to play by the rules? Fuck your rules.
You've created your world and your role in it. You have to stick to that! Hell no I don't! I can choose something else.
Other people are going to judge you for this. Well, okay. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. Either way... at least this is what I really want.

Happy, open, honest, forgiving, loved, connected, and full of abundance. I'll start there and let the rest take care of itself.