#i feel like it's easier to kind of spiral and get lost reading articles and stuff so i think a conversation might be more helpful for me

[spreadsheetdyke]

are any of u guys on low dose T or know someone who is? or on T in general and willing to chat with me about it? ive kind of been thinking abt it nonstop for a little bit. and i think talking to someone i know personally might help me figure stuff out

[wheresmynaya]

Lost in the Lights Ch.1 | Brittana

Looks like I’m back at it again! Honestly it’s only because it’s currently (American) football season and I’ve been wanting to write QB!Britt for SO LONG and Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince gave me lots of feelings about it.

 Also the Steelers are still undefeated so I’ve been in a good mood. 

Summary: Brittany S. Pierce is new to WMHS and quickly finds that the students there aren't as open-minded as the ones she's used to, especially when she takes over as the Titans' starting quarterback. Many heads are turned including Cheerios Co-Captain Santana Lopez who has some obstacles of her own to tackle.

Available on ff.net (x) ao3 (x) 

Once Brittany taped up the last box and set it aside for the movers to take, she took the rare moment she had alone and reminisced. She knew this day was bound to come. Since her father’s passing earlier in the year, Brittany’s mother – Whitney – had begun making the arrangements to move closer to Brittany’s grandparents in Ohio. Aside from a handful of friends, they didn’t really have anyone else close by and with Brittany’s little brother – Pete – still too young to stay home alone and Brittany busy with school, Whitney needed the extra help.

The move made sense, but Brittany dreaded it in silence. She was going into her Senior year and being the new kid at school wasn’t how she planned on spending it. She kept her feelings in check though as she boxed up her whole life and said goodbye.

Brittany didn’t want to make things harder by digging in her heels, so she put on a brave face for the sake of her family and finished her Junior year without making any complaints. Instead, Brittany did everything she could to help make the transition a little easier.

With a light knock on Brittany’s door, Whitney made her presence known.

“You ready to go, Britt?” Whitney asked gently.

Brittany could feel her throat tightening. Was she ready? The answer was obvious and deep down, Whitney knew that. She closed the distance and gave her daughter a hug.

“I’m sorry, kiddo,” Whitney whispered.

Brittany just nodded and held on tighter.

\\

It had been a long drive and it seemed like everything started to look a little greener the further they got from the coast. Even the trees changed from the bushy palms Brittany grew up with to tall oaks, but after what felt like a million hours the Pierce Family finally made it to their destination.

“It’s a good looking house, right kids?” Whitney asked cheerfully as the family stretched their achy limbs in front of their new home.

It wasn’t anything special, just a typical three bedroom, two bath. The siding was white, the shutters were blue and the wooden fence looked relatively knew. At a quick glance, the house looked like any other on the block. Brittany didn’t have any complaints though and when she glanced down at Pete, neither did he.

“It’s cute,” Brittany agreed with a smile then nudged her brother, “What do you think, Petey?”

“I like the windows,” Pete pointed up at the shutters, “Blue’s my favorite color.”

“Mine too,” Brittany winked.

“Well, go pick your rooms,” Whitney instructed.

She didn’t get a chance to tell them that they were the exact same size, one just faces the backyard and the other faces the front. The two took off towards the house giggling the whole way while Whitney just shook her head and trailed after them.

\\

It took them a couple weeks to settle into their new place with the help of Brittany’s grandparents, but it was finally starting to feel like home even if she felt like something was missing.

Or rather, someone.

Some nights she could hear the soft whimpers coming from her mother’s room and some nights Petey makes his way into Brittany’s bed because the dreams keep him up at night. Everyone misses him and that makes the transition a little harder. The nights are usually hard for everyone, but they manage to get by together.

It’s better during the day when it’s light out and there’s less time to overthink things. An Ohio summer has nothing on a Florida one, but Brittany doesn’t complain about that either. She can catch a tan wherever the sun shines, so she does just that.

She and Pete find a park within walking distance of their house and visit often while Whitney is out job hunting. Most days, Pete has more energy than Brittany can keep up with so the park really comes in handy. On the rare occasion, Pete sometimes would rather sit with Brittany on a blanket under one of the big trees there and color.

Sometimes, Brittany joins him because as Pete would say, “You’re never too old for coloring.”

\\

One day while they’re at the park, Brittany spots a couple of guys that look to be around her age. They’re a little ways away, tossing a football back and forth. She can just barely hear their voices, but they’re muffled and mix with the sound of her music playing from her phone.

“How’s this look, Britt?” Pete asks as he holds up his coloring book.

Brittany nods, “Excellent color choice for the hair.”

“I thought so too,” Pete grins and goes back to his scribbling while Brittany lazily flips through the latest issue of Sports Illustrated.

She switches from reading articles to watching the guys play. She notes their form and posture and she can’t help but critique them. Their throws are pretty average, but they aren’t too bad and she goes back to reading.

“Watch out!” Brittany hears one of the guys yell. She braces herself and holds out a protective arm over Pete’s head. Soon a football bounces down just a couple feet away from her blanket and rolls to a wobbly stop beside her.

“Way to go, Sam! You almost hit them,” The lean guy yells back to the shaggy-haired blonde.

“I thought you had that!”

“It was overthrown! Do you think I’m seven feet tall?”

“You could’ve jumped.”

“This is why you’re third string when we don’t even have a second.”

“Whatever Mike, I’m just having an off day,” The blonde grumbles as he trails his friend.

“You always say that,” Mike shakes his head and starts to jog over to Brittany and Pete, “Sorry about that!”

“That’s alright,” Brittany smiles as she reaches for the ball and pushes to stand. The leather feels familiar in her hands and it’s just now that she realizes she hasn’t picked up a ball in so long. Her fingers automatically slide into position between the laces though like they’re magnets being drawn together.

Brittany sets her eyes on Mike and draws her arm back to throw a perfect spiral.

The pass connects with the intended target – obviously – but the looks on both of the guys’ faces is priceless. Brittany smiles proudly as they whoop and holler. She didn’t realize she kind of misses that.

“Show off,” Pete teases though he matches her proud smile.

“That was an awesome throw!” Mike applauds as he rushes over, “Like Woah! Sorry, I’m Mike. That’s my friend, Sam.”

Sam’s still a little ways away but he waves as he jogs over, his blonde shaggy hair bouncing with every step. He kind of reminds Brittany of a golden retriever, eager and a little dorky.

“I’m Brittany,” Brittany greets and pats Pete’s head, “This is my brother, Pete. We just moved here.”

“Oh, I think we’re neighbors!” Mike grins, “The house with the blue shutters?”

“Yeah, that’s us.”

Sam finally joins the group, “Great throw! Can you do that again?”

Brittany shrugs casually, “Yeah. Probably.”

Mike and Sam drop their jaws in disbelief.

“My sister’s a quarterback,” Pete informs them, “She’s the best at school.”

“I was the best at our old school,” Brittany corrects and ruffles up his blonde hair.

“You were a,” Sam blinks, “I’ve never met a girl quarterback.”

Brittany tries to keep from gritting her teeth at the way he says girl. She knows he didn’t mean any disrespect, but it still makes her skin crawl. She forgets that some places aren’t as progressive as her old school, so she keeps the polite smile on her face.

“You have to try out,” Sam insists, “You’re better than half of those guys and no girl has ever tried out before. It would be so cool!”

“You saw me throw one time,” Brittany chuckles.

“Exactly, that’s how much we suck!”

“Hey!” Mike shakes his head and gives Brittany an encouraging smile, “You’d be great on the team.”

Mike seems genuine enough, they both do, but Brittany’s unsure of how she’ll be received here. She’s already going to be the new kid in school, she didn’t really want to add on to that by being the first girl to try out for the team.

“I don’t know,” Brittany looks unsure and glances down at Pete, “I wasn’t planning on playing this year.”

“You’ve got to,” Mike adds, “You have a killer arm.”

“Would totally bench Hudson,” Sam jokes with Mike.

Mike nods, “Without a doubt.”

“Is Hudson your current QB?” Brittany wonders.

“Yeah, for three years and we haven’t made a single playoffs appearance,” Sam answers with the shake of his head.

“Sam was going to try and play him for the starting position,” Mike explains, “Clearly he needs some work though.”

Sam scoffs and punches at Mike’s shoulder.

“Clearly,” Brittany chuckled. She liked these guys. They were kind of dorks but harmless and they seemed friendly.

“Well, we don’t want to pressure you if you don’t want to play,” Mike says a little more seriously, “But if you change your mind, try-outs are next Tuesday at William McKinley High at noon. See Coach Beiste.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Brittany replies, “Thanks.”

“Cool. Well, how about one more for the road?” Mike suggests and holds out the ball to Brittany.

Brittany was happy to oblige and slaps her palm against the leather, “Go long.”

The guys took off running, playfully shoving at each other as Brittany took her stance and got into position. She let them get a few more yards further before drawing back and letting the ball fly.

Again, it was a perfect throw.

When Sam caught it this time, Mike cheered while Sam did a celebratory dance. It wasn’t the smoothest thing Brittany had ever seen, but it was the funniest and it had her and Pete laughing harder than they had in awhile.

\\

That night at the dinner table with Whitney, Pete talked animatedly about his and Brittany’s day. Brittany always loved how excited he got about the smallest things and he always told stories with so much detail. They were worried that it would fade with their dad’s passing but Pete was still so full of love and light.

“We made friends at the park today too!” Pete said which piqued Whitney’s interest.

“Oh really?” Whitney smiled and looked to Brittany, “Making friends already?”

“I wouldn’t call them that,” Brittany chuckled as she picked mindlessly at her plate, “A couple guys from the high school here were playing catch. Apparently one of them is our neighbor too.”

“Mike!” Pete clarified.

“Yeah, Mike and Sam. They tried talking me into trying out for the football team,” Brittany explained, “I don’t think I’m going to play this year though.”

“What? Why not?” Whitney asked worriedly, “You’ve played every year since middle school.”

“I know, but I want to be able to help out here if you need me to,” Brittany reasons and glances over at Pete, “I don’t want to get stuck with football like I always do.”

“You love it, Britt, and you’re good at it,” Whitney tells her, “You should try out.”

“What about Pete?” Brittany questions, “No one will be home when he finishes school.”

“Gran will pick him up,” Whitney suggests easily.

“But – “

“No buts,” Whitney gives her a stern look, “It’s your Senior year and you love the game. If you want to play, you should. Isn’t that what your dad always said?”

Brittany feels something clench in the pit of her stomach and she isn’t sure if it’s a good feeling or a bad one. She can still hear her dad’s voice gently guiding her and maybe that’s what helps her decide this time too.

“Okay yeah, I’ll try out,” Brittany announces and it’s the first time she finally feels like herself again since moving to Ohio.

\\

It’s a muggy Summer’s day when Brittany arrives at her new school for try-outs. She can already feel all eyes on her as she walks through the gate and joins the others on the field. She spots Mike and Sam with a few others and they wave at her while the others give her curious looks. Brittany gives them a nod but stays focused. It feels like it’s a hundred degrees there, but she’s use to the heat after growing up in Florida. She stands tall with her chin held high as she makes her way over to the Coach.

She’s pleasantly surprised when she finds that the Coach is also a woman.

“Coach Beiste?”

“Cheerios try-outs are held in the gym,” The woman tells her without a second glance.

Brittany bites her lip and tries to shake the nerves, “I’m not here for a cereal ad, Coach. I want to try-out for the team.”

The woman pauses and eyes Brittany curiously as she says, “This is football try-outs.”

“I know,” Brittany nods resolutely, “I’ve played before.”

“Position?”

“Quarterback.”

Coach looks impressed, “What string?”

Brittany smirks, “I was the starter.”

The woman blinks and it’s similar to the look Sam gave her.

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Brittany. Brittany S. Pierce.”

“You just move here or something?” Beiste asks as she jots down Brittany’s name on the clipboard, “I haven’t seen you around.”

“Yes,” Brittany nods, “I just moved here from Florida.”

“Alright. Well, you won’t get any special treatment on my field,” Beiste tells her sternly, “You’ll run the drills, same as everyone else and I’ll see how you go. You throw up, it’s an automatic out.”

“Of course,” Brittany grins, “I don’t want it any other way.”

\\

It’s no surprise to Brittany when she aces try-outs. She’s always been pretty athletic and she starts every morning with a run so she’s in tip-top shape and breezes through the drills. Even the team’s resident quarterback – Finn Hudson – struggles to keep up with the others. Brittany notes how uncoordinated his movements are and starts to understand why the team hasn’t made a playoff appearance.

Finn’s saving grace though is that he has a pretty good arm, but Brittany is confident that hers is better. Actually, she knows it is. If they’re going to compare stats, Brittany has him beat in every category but she lets her talent speak for itself. No one likes a cocky new kid on the block.

“You’re promising, Pierce,” Coach Beiste tells her after the third day of try-outs, “Between you and me, you can run circles around Hudson and I have no doubt you can outshine him.”

“I appreciate that, Coach.”

“But, he’s been our starter for nearly three years now. He’s got the team’s respect and trust,” Coach Beiste reasons.

Brittany nods. She hates how she has to start from scratch here. At her old school, she didn’t have to prove anything to anyone, they just knew she was talented because they grew up with her. Here, they don’t know anything about her and that puts her at a real disadvantage.

“You can’t just come in like a bat outta hell and snatch it from him,” Coach continues, “You’re going to have to play for it; prove yourself to me and the team that you can do a better job. You’ve got to really earn this.”

Brittany saw that coming too so she nods, “I understand.”

“I took a look at your record. I hope you don’t mind,” Coach Beiste says, “It’s very impressive, Pierce. I haven’t seen talent like yours in awhile around here. I almost forgot what it was like to see stats like yours.”

“Thank you. I’ve been playing for a long time.”

“I can tell, so this is what I’m going to do. There’s a pre-season game coming up,” Beiste tells her, “I want to put you in, see what you can do. If I like what I see, you might just be able to nudge Hudson out. There are a lot of Seniors on this team, I know they’d love to see the Championships and I think you can get them there.”

“I know I can,” Brittany says without a second thought.

Coach pats her hard on the shoulder pad, “That’s what I like to hear. Go get cleaned up.”

\\

While Brittany gets packed up a little while later, she feels someone standing close by. She waits for some off-handed comment – she’s heard a few of the guys mumble them under their breath – but it never comes. She figures it’s either Mike or Sam but when she turns, it’s neither of them.

“Hi,” The guy greets. His voice is meek, almost angelic and it takes Brittany by surprise.

“Hi,” Brittany smiles back though as she stands.

“I’m Kurt,” He says and does a showy kick, “I’m the kicker.”

Brittany notes his small stature compared to the other guys. There’s not an ounce of muscle on him it looks like, typical for someone on special teams.

“I’m Brittany,” She replies, “Not sure what I am just yet.”

“I hope you’re going to be our knew QB,” Kurt grins and takes a seat next to Brittany’s duffle as she continues packing up, “I’m rooting for you. I know there are a few others that are too, they just don’t want you to know about it. I don’t really understand the point, we all want to win.”

“Thanks.”

“Sure,” Kurt nods and starts to admire Brittany’s keychain, “Oh! We play for the same team.”

“Obviously or this would be pretty embarrassing,” Brittany says with a straight face.

“No, I meant – “

Brittany grins slyly as she watches his face turn red. She glances down at her rainbow unicorn keychain in his hand and meets his gaze, “I know what you meant.”

Kurt laughs it off awkwardly and tries to recover, “It’s nice to finally have someone to talk to on the team.”

Brittany can hear just a hint of sadness in his tone and looks up, “They don’t talk to you?”

“They do, but it’s not the same. We don’t have much in common. All they want to talk about are video games and hot chicks,” Kurt scrunches his nose like there’s a bad taste in his mouth but then he looks at Brittany and relaxes, “Then again, you might be able to relate with that last one.”

Brittany chuckles as she reties up her hair, “You think so?”

Kurt eyes her and nods to the keychain again, “I don’t know many female quarterbacks that are straight. Actually, I don’t know any female quarterbacks.” Kurt ponders for a moment then looks to Brittany apologetically, “I’m sorry, that was intrusive. I apologize.”

Brittany gives him a pat on the knee as she stands. She pulls up her heavy duffle and adjusts the strap on her shoulder, “You’re not wrong, but I’m here to play football. Not drool over girls, no matter how pretty they are.”

Kurt smiles, “Good to hear. It would be nice to win for a change.”

“I’ll do my best,” Brittany tells him, “I’ll see you at practice.”

\\

Whitney and Pete are in the stands along with Brittany’s grandparents on the day of the game against Crawford County Day. Brittany’s been sitting on the bench for a whole quarter and her knees are bouncing at the opportunity to get on the field.

She watches her team in action and it’s almost embarrassing how ununified they are. It’s like no one’s taking charge – no one’s leading – and it hurts to watch.

“Blitz! Blitz!” Coach yells, “Watch the blitz!”

Brittany can see it coming, but Finn doesn’t change plays.

The ball is hiked and Finn hands it off to their Running Back – Noah Puckerman – but the defense slips through from all sides. Puckerman is swallowed up in an instant.

It’s a loss of three yards, third down.

Brittany glances over at Coach and her face is beet red.

The next play is even worse. It’s meant to be a simple slant pass, but the lack of communication between Finn and the receivers – Mike and Sam – has everyone on different pages. When Finn drops back, no one is open and the pocket collapses in on him for a sack.

Brittany cringes at the hard hit and shakes her head.

“Damn it, Hudson!” Coach snaps and throws her hat on the ground.

The Titans finish the half down by 13 points.

\\

It’s the longest twenty-minute halftime Brittany has ever endured. Coach just tears into the team for being so sloppy. Apparently Crawford County Day is meant to be one of the easiest teams on their roster so the fact that the Titans are behind already isn’t really a good sign.

“Good thing this is just a scrimmage!” Beiste yells, “I’ve never seen so many poorly executed plays in my entire career. What the hell was that out there?”

“They’ve gotten better, Coach.”

Brittany presses her lips tight together to keep from laughing at Finn’s excuse.

“I am captain of the U.S.S. Kick Ass, not the U.S.S. Back Talk,” Beiste said pointedly and looked at Brittany, “Pierce, your starting.”

“Wait, Coach!” Finn argued, “You can’t start her, she’s…she’s –“

Brittany arched her brow at him, waiting for a lame insult to come tumbling out.

“She’s gunning for your job, Hudson,” Beiste cut in.

“You can’t be serious!” Finn crossed his arms, “We don’t even know if she can play.”

“You just keep your eyes on me then,” Brittany smirked as she pulled on her helmet, “I’ll show you how it’s done.”

“Woah!” Sam cheered and high fived Mike.

“Shut up,” Puck shoved at them both, “Have some respect.”

“You’re one to talk,” Kurt replied meekly.

Puck rounded on him, “What was that, Hummel?”

Kurt just lifted a dainty hand and admired his nails quietly.

Brittany just smirked. Maybe she didn’t have the entire team on her side yet, but she liked her odds so far.

\\

At first, things were a little rocky. It seemed that the offense wasn’t use to someone taking charge – they weren’t use to her taking charge – but Brittany kept at it and it started to pay off.

Once she got into her groove, she could read the defense so easily and adjust accordingly. She’d hear the grunts of disbelief whenever she’d call an audible, but by the last quarter she felt like she had finally made ground and gained some of the team’s trust.

Because by the last quarter, the Titans were up by 3 points.

She could play it safe with just seconds to go, but this was just a scrimmage and she wanted to make a lasting impression. She didn’t just want to win with a field goal attempt, she was confident that she could put more points on the board before the final.

Brittany straightened up and motioned for a timeout. The ref blew the whistle and Brittany gathered the team for a huddle. She took out her mouthguard and looked around at her teammates.

“I want to try Blue 80,” Brittany tells them.

“You’re ballsy, Pierce!” Matt Rutherford – the Tight End – said but it came out as a compliment.

Mike and Sam looked between each other before Mike spoke up, “We’ve never made a completion with this play.”

“Guess we should change that,” Brittany shrugged.

“You really want to blow the lead?” Dave Karofsky – the Right Guard – mocked.

“It’s the last play of the game,” Sam defended, “The worse that could happen is it gets intercepted and they run it all the way –“

“Shut up, Evans!” Azimio – the Left Guard – snapped, “Don’t jinx us.”  

“It’s all or nothing,” Brittany reasoned, “Scared QBs don’t make plays and I think we can put more points on the board. You with me?”

She held out her gloved fist and waited for the other’s to join her.

Puck was the first to hold out his fist, “You pull this off, Pierce, and I’ll tell Finn myself that you’re the better QB.”

“You’re on,” Brittany smirked and watched as the rest of the team joined her, “Titans on three. One…two…three!”

“Titans!” They yelled out in unison. Brittany was impressed, she was already making them a more cohesive team.

\\

Everyone got into their positions, what looked to be a simple running play. The defense fell right for it and adjusted accordingly. When the ball was snapped, Brittany faked the hand off to Puck and swiftly dropped back, watching as the other team went after him instead of realizing she still had the ball in her possession.

Meanwhile, Mike and Sam broke away from their defenders and jetted up the field. Both were wide open, but Mike crossed into the endzone just before Sam did. While the pocket still held, Brittany made her decision and let the ball fly before it could collapse in on her.

She hoped and wished and prayed to anyone who was listening that Mike would catch this thing. So much was riding on this; the team’s trust, their respect, solidifying her position as the new quarterback. Mike needed to catch this.

The relief she felt when he did was unmatched!

The crowd roared and Brittany’s chest swelled with pride. She glanced up at the sky and smiled, her dad would’ve loved that play.

Soon she was swarmed by her new team and they hoisted her up on their shoulders as they chanted her name, “Pierce! Pierce! Pierce!”

“Hate to say it, bro,” Puck said as they carried Brittany off to the sideline where Finn was close to throwing a tantrum, “But the girl’s got mad skill. She’s got my vote.”

“Who cares about a vote. That’s not how we do things,” Finn scoffs, “It’s up to Coach.”

“Easy, Hudson, you could learn a lot from her. Kid’s on fire,” Coach Beiste smiled proudly and patted Brittany on her helmet, “You got the job, Pierce. Titans, your new quarterback.”

“Thanks, Coach!” Brittany grinned while most of the team cheered.

\\

After the game once everyone had changed out of their uniforms, Brittany was surprised to see Puck approach her with an interesting offer.

“Yo Pierce! Wait up,” He called after her.

“Hey,” Brittany nodded.

“I’m throwing a party this weekend before school starts up again,” He says, “I wasn’t going to invite you because didn’t know if you were cool yet.”

Brittany gives him an unbelieving look but it goes over his head.

“The whole team’s going and considering you’re our QB now I figured it was only right that I let you in on it,” Puck then gave her a sly grin, “Lots of hot babes will be there if that’s your thing. Is it your thing?”

Brittany chose to ignore the question, “Thanks for the invite. I’ll try to swing by if I can.”

“Not to brag, but my parties are usually pretty awesome,” Puck flaunted, “If you want to start off on the right foot at this school – being the new kid and all – you’re gonna want to show up.”

She couldn’t decide if that was meant to be a threat or that he just sucks at persuading, but Brittany shrugged it off. She was beginning to get the impression that Lima might live up to the stereotype of being a small town.

Brittany didn’t waver though, “I’ll keep that in mind, Puck. I’ll see you around.”

\\\\\

As a Cheerios Co-Captain, Santana Lopez knew that there were certain social obligations that she had to keep up with. One of those obligations being the End of Summer party Puck always threw. Only the top dogs of McKinley were allowed to attend and if you didn’t it was basically social suicide.

With everything that happened last year, Santana couldn’t afford to miss it no matter how much she hated going. It was like her reputation had been in freefall and she was barely holding on. She couldn’t have that – not for her Senior year – so she sucked it up and told her parents she was sleeping over her best friend’s house.

Quinn Fabray – the other Co-Captain of the Cheerios – was the only person it seemed like that kept Santana sane. They considered themselves the hottest bitches McKinley had to offer and most of the student body couldn’t help but agree. They had the looks, the smarts, the snark; they were the perfect duo and were set on ruling the school.

Santana hoped that last year was just a minor blip in their legacy. She had high hopes coming into Senior year, she already felt like she had hit rock bottom and she was over feeling sorry for herself.

The best way to feel on top again? Attend Puck’s party.

Of course, it was easier said than done.

\\

The music is loud and there are people everywhere. Honestly, Santana has no idea how these things have never been shut down. She thinks maybe the dopes down at the Lima Police Department are just too swamped with real crime-fighting to deal with Puck and his shenanigans for the millionth time.  

That’s obviously a joke. Nothing interesting ever happens in Lima, the LPD are just a bunch of lazy fucks who apparently don’t care about a couple dozen kids drinking underage.

Santana sits with Quinn at the edge of Puck’s pool and they just people-watch as they dangle their feet in the cool water. It’s a hot night and there are already a couple drunken idiots wading in the shallow end, singing along to the music at the top of their lungs.

She looks down at her red solo cup and swirls the amber liquid. She barely has a buzz so she takes another gulp in hopes that she’ll catch up and finally start enjoying the party.

Quinn watches her wearily but does the same. Neither of them want to be there but appearances are important, especially to them.

Speaking of appearances, Santana spots a leggy blonde across the way through the glass double-doors. She’s dressed casually in cut-off jean shorts and a white t-shirt. Santana raises her brow; she wishes she could show up to a party looking like that. It took her an hour alone to do her make up, let alone pick out the right outfit.

Santana continues to watch her – though she feels a little weird for it. She’s never seen the girl around here before and decides that’s the reason why she can’t take her eyes off of her – she’s just curious. A little piece of her deep down inside calls her out for lying.

Still, Santana just assumes the blonde came with one of the football players since that’s who she seems to gravitate to. She notices the familiar faces from the football team – Sam Evans in particular – and watches as he hands the blonde a red cup.

The girl smiles in return and wow, Santana’s a little star-struck by its brilliance. Sam must’ve said something dorky because now the girl’s laughing and shaking her head at him. Santana’s never seen someone so effortlessly beautiful and she has to bite her cheek to keep from smiling too. This girl, she has one of those infection kind of smiles and it’s trouble.

Mike Chang walks up next and clinks his cup against the girl’s and together they begin to chat.

Santana quickly glances to Quinn to catch her reaction. Mike and Quinn aren’t exactly official, but it’s obvious they have a thing for each other.

Quinn’s not looking though and Santana feels a little relief. She can’t deal with a jealous Quinn tonight, and a little part of her doesn’t want this new girl to have to deal with that either.

When Santana glances back, she recognizes Sugar Motta – McKinley’s resident Richie Bitch – pulling the blonde girl in to dance and suddenly Santana’s watching a little too closely.

This girl can clearly dance and the way she moves with Sugar is so graceful. Sugar on the other hand isn’t as fluid, but their hands smooth over each other teasingly. When the blonde’s hands land on Sugar’s hips, they start to sway together and Santana can just tell that the blonde’s the one leading now.

Santana can feel this coil within her tightening the longer she watches, her mouth getting drier at the way she takes control.

Then the song changes and the two laugh and carry on so carefreely as if nothing happened. Their moves mimic the steady rhythm and they start to bounce with their fists pumping at the air in time to the pounding bass.

Santana frowns at the slight pang of jealousy; she used to be like that, so uncaring and full of life. She danced with whoever she wanted – boy or girl – and it didn’t matter, but now…now it does.

“Who’s she?” Quinn asks, her gazing lining up with the blonde talking to Sugar.

“No idea.”

“Should I ask around?”

“No!” Santana blurts and Quinn eyes her suspiciously. Santana adjusts, “No. I’m sure we’ll find out sooner or later. She’s hanging around Sugar and you know she can’t keep her mouth shut for more than two seconds.”

Quinn smirks, “True.”

\\

When Puck finally rears his ugly mug, Santana’s surprised they were able to dodge him for so long.

“Hey ladies,” He greets with his signature smirk, “I’m not interrupting, am I?”

There are beer stains on his open button-down and Santana can smell the tanning oil on him from where she sits. He’s got a nice body or whatever, but that doesn’t mean he needs to strut around basted in Hawaiian Tropic. She can’t really talk though, she and Quinn have both made out with him at some point in time.

“Scram, Puckerman,” Santana replies with a roll of her eyes, “I’m not drunk enough to deal with your lame ass.”

“Is that any way to talk to the host?” Puck mocks and squeezes in to sit between the Co-Captains.

Santana groans and shuffles away from him, but he throws a heavy arm around her and Quinn’s shoulders. She can smell something stronger than beer on his breath and scoffs as she gets out from underneath his arm, “You’re gross.”

“Whatever. I’m not here for you anyway,” Puck brushes off and leans heavily against Quinn instead, “I know you’re not on the menu anymore or has that changed?”

Santana’s taken aback but her heart begins to pound wildly at the accusation.

“Choose your next words carefully,” Santana warns.

“What?” Puck laughs, “You still trying to hold out on me?”

“Puck,” Quinn snaps and shrugs out from under him too.

He’s too drunk and wrapped up in his own bullshit to notice that he’s crossed a line, but his voice grabs the attention of those surrounding them.

Santana suddenly feels small, trapped even. It feels like everyone’s staring now and listening to Puck’s drunken words.

“All I wanna know is if that phase is over with now?” He says and it’s like the final blow for Santana.

She shrinks back and her vicious words that use to come so easily for her die on her tongue. There’s a crowd gathering now and she notices the blonde girl from before eyeing them too.

“It’s not a phase, asshole,” Quinn snaps and surprises everyone watching by pushing him into the pool.

Santana’s eyes go wide as she sees the big splash. She’s never been so thankful to have Quinn as her best friend.

“What the hell, Quinn!” Puck grumbles as he resurfaces, “I had my phone on me still!”

“Shouldn’t have been a dick then,” Quinn shrugs and hooks her arm with Santana’s, “Let’s go, the beer’s flat here anyway.”

Santana finally kicks into gear and nods, “Yeah. I’m not trying to be hungover for practice tomorrow.”

Santana doesn’t know why, but as they turn to leave she looks around for the mysterious blonde. To her disappointment, she’s nowhere to be found.

They make their way to the street and begin the short walk home in silence. Santana’s heart is still racing even though they’re so far away now that she can’t even hear the low thrum of the music emanating from Puck’s place. She hopes that no one saw her choke on her words, maybe they’ll be too distracted by Quinn’s actions to remember.

It’s not until another ten minutes later when they’ve arrived at Quinn’s house that Santana finally finds her voice again.

“Thanks Q,” She says quietly. She knows she doesn’t need to elaborate and she’s thankful for that too.

Quinn only lifts her shoulder in a lazy shrug, “You would’ve done the same for me.”

\\\\\

The first day of school rolls around quickly for Brittany, but despite being the new kid she makes friends relatively easy. Kurt’s in her first class and she’s honestly so relieved to see a familiar face.

He takes it upon himself to show her around and introduce Brittany to his friends. So far, Brittany’s met a Tonya or Taylor – she’s not very good with names – but she’s nice. There’s also Mercedes – she remembers that name – who Brittany met in her Astronomy class and alongside Kurt guide, they guide Brittany through McKinley High.

It’s a total Mean Girls moment and Brittany finds herself laughing at how eager they are to show her around.

When they get to lunch, she notices that everyone is pretty cliquey which is something she isn’t use to. At her old school, everyone mingled with everyone. It didn’t matter if you played sports or if you were considered cool, people just hung out with whoever they wanted.

At McKinley High, that’s clearly not the case.

All the football players sit together but instead of joining them, Kurt leads Brittany and Mercedes to a different table close by. They get a couple of curious looks, but all Brittany can focus on is what they’re wearing.

“Why have they got on their letterman jackets?” Brittany questions with a laugh, “It’s so hot outside, they have to be melting.”

“How else do expect them to establish dominance?” Kurt says sarcastically, “I only wear mine on game days. You don’t have one yet, right?”

“No,” Brittany answers, “But I do have my own number now.”

“Oh good,” Kurt grins, “It’s official now.”

\\

Kurt and Mercedes are still trying to give her the rundown, but Brittany’s starting to reach her peak when it comes to taking in all the new info. Whatever they’re saying now is kind of going in one ear and out the other, the only thing that brings her back is spotting the familiar brunette she saw at Puck’s party.

Even if Brittany drank a little more than she anticipated, she was still sober enough to remember the saddest looking girl at the party.

“And those are the Cheerios,” Mercedes tells Brittany as if she could read her mind, “McKinley’s cheerleading squad and top of the social food chain.”

“I haven’t seen them at any of the games,” Brittany looks to Kurt for an explanation.

“They don’t bother with pre-season,” Kurt answers, “They’re basically the only ones here winning any titles. Coach Sylvester practically lets them get away with murder.”

Brittany notes all the high ponies and uniforms, everyone’s make up is on point and there’s not a single hair out of place. They all look immaculate, but Brittany focuses on the two that she’s most familiar with.

“Who are they?” She asks.

“The blonde one is Quinn Fabray,” Kurt informs her in a hushed tone, “She’s Co-Captain along with the brunette – Santana Lopez – and both of their families are loaded. They’ve been best friends since ever, you rarely see one without the other. Quinn’s kind of a prude and Santana’s – “

“A complete bitch for no reason most of the time,” Mercedes finishes for him.

Kurt shakes his head, “She has a reason.”

His cryptic words interest Brittany. Hell, she’s been interested ever since she saw Quinn push Puckerman into the pool.

“Doesn’t give her an excuse to terrorize us,” Mercedes reasons, “The girl is trouble.”

Kurt bobbles his head from side to side and looks back at Brittany, “It’s best if you stay out of her way, Brittany. It’ll make your life a whole lot easier.”

“You think?” Mercedes asks, “She’s on the football team, the quarterback even. You think Santana will mess with her?”

Kurt shrugs, “She still messes with me doesn’t, she?”

“That’s true,” Mercedes frowns.

Brittany just nods, but that doesn’t extinguish the curiosity that has blossomed within her.

\\

And maybe someone above is testing her, because when Brittany arrives to her final class of the day she finds the exact person Kurt and Mercedes have been warning her against interacting with: Santana Lopez.

And to make matters even worse, the only available seat left in the room just so happens to be the one right next to her. Brittany shakes her head and glances at the board to double check she’s in the right place.

Creative Writing – Miss Holliday Room 215

Brittany’s definitely in the right place and lets out a sigh.

Might as well bite the bullet, Brittany thinks as musters all the confidence she has left and she approaches the table. She’s been rushed at by guys ten times the brunette’s size moving at full speed on the football field and yet, she can’t help but feel a little nervous when she comes to stand before the Co-Captain.

“Hi,” Brittany greets with a polite smile, “Can I sit here?”

Santana glances up at her like she can’t believe the audacity Brittany has. She eyes her up and down then goes back to filing her nails, “No.”

Brittany nods, so Kurt and Mercedes might’ve been right.

“There aren’t any other seats left,” Brittany adds.

Santana doesn’t even look up this time, “Sounds like a personal problem to me.”

Brittany has to bite her cheek to keep from laughing. This girl is something else but Brittany’s never been one to back down.

Unfortunately her teacher – Miss Holliday –  approaches, “Are you seriously starting off the year by being a pain in my ass, Lopez? Don’t give the new kid a hard time. Move over.”

“Fine,” Santana rolls her eyes and slides her books closer to her side of the table.

Brittany looks back at the teacher and smiles, “Thanks.”

“All good,” The woman says casually. She’s young and reminds Brittany of one of her favorite teachers at her old school, “Have a seat, Sweet Cheeks.”

Brittany does as she’s told and gets settled next to Santana. She can feel the tension radiating off the Cheerio, but tries to ease it by introducing herself.

“I’m Brittany,” She tells the brunette and adds a friendly smile for emphasis. If she’s going to be stuck sitting next to her for the rest of the year, they can at least be civil. Right?

Wrong.

“I didn’t ask,” Santana retorts and spends the rest of class giving Brittany the cold shoulder.

For some reason though, that only makes Brittany want to get to know Santana even more.

Afterall, she loves a challenge.

\\\\\

It’s the last Cheerios practice indoors and Santana and Quinn soak up the privilege of conditioning in a space with A.C. There are many reasons why Santana dreads having to join football team outdoors for practice, one being that it’s hot as hell still during this time of year and also she can’t stand the cat-calling.

With Coach Beiste as the acting head coach now, the guys are a lot more tame but Santana still hates how she feels like she’s being watched all the time. Some of the other girls on the squad don’t mind it too much though, they’re all about teasing and the pleasing apparently.

“How’s your schedule this year?” Quinn asks between stretches.

“It’s alright,” Santana shrugs, “Super easy. I got Holliday and Schuester again.”

“Lucky!” Quinn says, “I got Hagberg. I wish she would just retire already.”

Santana agrees then she remembers her last class of the day and how the mysterious blonde from Puck’s party now has a name, “Hey. Remember that girl we saw at Puck’s?”

“The blonde one?”

“Yeah, her. Brittany,” Santana murmurs the name, “I have a class with her.”

“Oh! Is she cool or something?” Quinn’s intrigued, “She’s pretty and she’s got some moves. We could get her on the squad?”

Pretty, Santana thinks it’s an understatement now that she’s seen her up close. She’s never seen eyes so damn blue and that smile – again, wow.

Quinn catches her swept up in her thoughts and quickly plays it off, “Hell no.”

“Really? Why not?”

“She’s just…,” Santana racks her brain for an excuse but she’s blanking, “She’s just not Cheerios material.”

Quinn calls her bluff, “How would you know?”

“I just do,” Santana scoffs and continues to struggle for a reason, “There’s something different about her, okay?”

“Different is good though, right? We could use that.”

“God Quinn, just drop it alright?” Santana snaps and walks off.

Quinn just laughs in disbelief, “You’re the one that brought her up!”

\\

The rest of the week is a little of the same. Santana goes through the motions of her day although a hidden piece of her longs for her last class with Brittany. She still ignores the blonde’s attempts to make conversation, but it doesn’t seem like the girl is giving up anytime soon.

Quinn still presses for Brittany to join the squad, but Santana’s not having any of that either.

Quinn can’t understand why Santana’s being so adamant about the decision. Santana doesn’t know why either. In fact, there are a lot of things Santana doesn’t understand when it comes to Brittany, but she’s not exactly ready to unpack any of that.

If anything, she’s afraid of what it all could mean.

It isn’t until Friday night that things begin to get a little clearer for them all.

\\

It’s the first regular season game which means it’s the first game the Cheerios make an appearance in. The Titans are pumped but Santana isn’t sure what’s gotten into them, they never win so cheering for them always feels like a waste of time. There’s a different air about the team this year though, but Santana doesn’t think much of it as the game kicks off.

Santana and Quinn and the rest of the Cheerios do what they do best and breathe life into the crowd like always, but they find that they don’t need to work as hard to keep morale up because the Titans are actually winning for a change.

In fact, Santana has to check the score twice to make sure she’s reading it correctly.

Home: 9 Away: 0

“What the hell?” Santana bumps Quinn with her pompom, “We’re winning?”

“Weird, right?” Quinn replies and nods over to the Titans’ bench, “Wonder if it has anything to do with that?”

Santana blinks, “Is that Finnocence?”

“Yeah, it is.”

Santana snaps back to the field, “Then who’s out there?”

“Sam?” Quinn questions but they know he’s #6 and #6 is on the other side of the field catching a perfectly thrown pass.

They both look to the quarterback and Santana asks, “Who’s #12?”

“No idea,” Quinn shrugs, “But he’s killing it!”

Santana doesn’t know much about football but she does know a lot about winning and whatever this guy is doing seems to be working.

Santana and Quinn spend the rest of the game trying to figure out who’s beneath #12’s helmet, but decide that someone already on the team must’ve been given a new number with the promotion to quarterback.

There’s really no other explanation.

All that though is quickly forgotten as the game ends and the Titans come away with their first win of the regular season. It’s practically unheard of considering their losing streak. The stands erupt in applause and Santana watches as the Titans go wild too. Sam and Mike hoist #12 onto their shoulders as the quarterback pulls of his helmet.

When Santana sees long blonde hair cascade out from underneath it, she just about faints because the Titans’ new quarterback isn’t some random guy: it’s Brittany.

“Well,” Quinn’s equally surprised and bumps Santana with her shoulder, “Looks like you were right about her being different.”

[angelsfalling16]

So, I’ve been thinking about what a demiromantic/greyromantic Simon would be like, and I was originally going to make this into a fic, but I decided to just leave it in the idea phase and share it with you all to see what you think.  I wanted to explore it in an au where they haven’t been roommates for years and take the time to become friends before anything happens, but this could also be explored through a Watford-era fic.

Also, this is a bit long and rambling, so bear with me.

So, Simon and Baz have been talking and hanging out and growing closer, and Simon starts to wonder if this could turn into something more. The only problem is that he isn’t really sure where that line between romantic love and platonic love.

Realizing that he might have feelings for Baz is the best and worst thing that could have happened to Simon because, yes the possibility of having a crush on him is nice, but he is so confused about his feelings that it stresses him throughout the day and occasionally keeps him up with wondering about it.

He wonders if Baz has this same problem. Does he think about Simon all the time and wonder what it means? Or is it easier for him to know for sure whether what he feels is romantic or not? Simon doesn’t understand why it’s so hard for him to figure it out. Shouldn’t it be easy? You either like someone or you don’t. There shouldn’t be this much confusion, but still, Simon can’t say either way for sure if he has those kinds of feelings for Baz.

He decides to make a list of things that he does know for sure and go from there.

He knows that he likes spending time with Baz and would like to do even more that.

His heart always does this little stutter when Baz messages him or smiles at him, and the butterflies in his stomach seem to constantly being going crazy.

He loves talking to Baz and wants to spend time together the way couples do.

When he goes to bed at night, he imagines Baz holding him as they fall asleep together. It isn’t necessarily anything more than that. It’s just a nice feeling.

The idea of calling Baz his boyfriend feels nice. It makes him smile in this absolutely foolish way that no one should ever see.

He has imagined kissing Baz, and he doesn’t think that he would be against it.

He even gets jealous at the thought of Baz finding someone else. But is that fair of him?

Even with this list, he isn’t sure how he feels, so he decides to make another list. This time it’s things that he isn’t sure about:

Whether his feelings could be considered romantic.

If any of this means that he and Baz would be a good couple.

If all of these things mean that he wants to be in a relationship.

He isn’t sure of much really except for the fact that he has grown to care deeply about Baz and feel strongly about him, and the thought of losing him because of his confusion frightens him. He is worried that Baz won’t be willing to wait for him to figure out because what if it turns out that all he has is this ability to love him platonically? Will Baz think he was just stringing him along? Will he grow to resent him for it?

Simon doesn’t want Baz to hate him, and he decides that he needs to try to figure this out, both for his own sake and for Baz’s sake, so he starts googling.

He types in “How do I know if I have a crush on someone?” and the first thing that pops up is a wikihow page about how to recognize if you have a crush, so he clicks on it and starts reading. The first think on the page is an Urban Dictionary definition of a crush: “a burning desire to be with someone who you find very attractive and extremely special.” It doesn’t take long at all for Simon to say yes, that describes how he feels about Baz. But then the next thing the page talks about is the different types of crushes.

Simon is easily able to say that it isn’t an admiration crush or a passing crush, but that still leaves him wondering if it’s a platonic or romantic crush. They both describe how he feels really well, especially when the romantic crush section says, “If you fantasize about kissing, holding hands with, or cuddling with that person, you probably have a romantic crush.” Simon has definitely fantasized about all of those things, but for some reason, he still has some doubts. Something is telling him that he could be wrong, so he keeps reading.

When he gets to the part where it says, “Consider whether or not your crush is all you think about,” he remembers how Penny once had to put a limit on how much he could talk about Baz. Simon makes it through the rest of the article, and a lot of what it says really resonates with him. And then the last thing the article says is that if there has been a specific person on your mind while reading, it means that you likely have a crush on them.

So, maybe he does have a crush, but he wants to understand why it’s so hard to figure it out and be sure, so he starts googling other things. He looks into different romantic orientations beyond just gay, bi, or pan because he’s pretty sure that if he’s into guys, he’s probably into girls too, but that isn’t what he’s interested in right now. He’s looking for something that might explain why he doesn’t fall for people the way that others do.

Eventually, he stumbles across a page about aromanticism, which leads him to one on demiromanticism and another on greyromanticism. After reading about all of them, he starts to think that greyromantic describes him more because of some of the way it is described:

- “Feeling ‘between’ aromantic and not

- “Only infrequently or rarely experiencing romantic attraction”

- “Feeling unsure about how to identify romantic attraction or how to draw the line between romantic and nonromantic, and consequently feeling unsure about having experienced it or not”

It isn’t a perfect fit, but it at least gives him a bit of an explanation for how he feels. The next thing he does is look up what the difference between platonic and romantic attraction is, but he doesn’t get a clear answer from anyone. It seems like it’s something he will have to figure out on his own. And he does want to do that.

While looking up the different romantic orientations, he also stumbles upon something about having a relationship with someone even though you might not experience romantic attraction, and that leads to him spiraling down into more questions.

Is that what it would be with him and Baz? Would Baz be okay with that? Even though Simon isn’t sure his feelings are romantic, he knows that he feels very strongly about Baz and wants to spend time with him doing couple things. The only problem is the question of whether he feels romantic attraction.

He thinks he does. Would it be wrong of him to ask Baz to wait for him to figure it out? To ask him to let Simon explore this thing, a relationship with him, so that he can see if it is what he wants. He doesn’t want Baz to end up resenting him in the end if it turns out that Simon only feels a romantic attraction, but he really wants to figure this out before he loses Baz completely.

He worries that it won’t be enough for Baz, that Baz won’t want to try this, but he knows that he wants to at least talk to Baz about it. Simon eventually decides that it can’t hurt to ask, to tell Baz about his confusion and talk through what the both of them want.

Even with all of the reading Simon did, he still isn’t sure about any of it. He does know that he wants to have feelings for Baz, and he would like to explore the idea of a relationship. But he worries that it won’t be enough.

He hopes that talking to Baz won’t go as badly as he thinks it could, but there is a part of him that thinks Baz will get angry and turn away from him, not wanting to even be friends when he finds out that Simon feels so lost.

Communication is key with all of this. Simon is awful at it, but he wants to try. He knows he’s been a terrible boyfriend in the past, and he still isn’t sure how to do it, but he thinks he might like to try.

He wants to try to make it work with Baz in any way that he can.

Anyway, Simon finally talks to Baz about it, but it is up to you all to figure out how it ends.

I know how I want it to, but I’ve talked enough, so I’m going to stop rambling now because this turned out 3 times longer than I thought it would. Thank you to anyone who actually read all of this. <3

[thisolddag]

She’ll Be Right.

Six weeks on my own have taken their toll. For the first time in years, I board an airplane without the accompanying belief that I am going to die on it. 

In fact, I’m a bit blasé boarding - I still say my three prayers (two in Polish, one in English) I still step onto the plane right foot first - but in general I’m exhausted and feel only relief when the doors finally close. It’s ironic, of course, my newfound air travel nonchalance - as this isn’t going to be just some ordinary flight; this is going to be fourteen hours across the vast and deep and dark Pacific, just the kids and me. If there was a such a thing as an anti-bucket list, just days ago, getting on this particular Boeing 777 would have been at the very top. But there I was - row A, seat 6, listening to the Ashanti/Ja Rule version of Helpless from the hit Broadway musical Hamilton, on repeat - and not shaking with fear that as soon as we took off, or somewhere over that bottomless body of water, or perhaps right at landing, our plane would suddenly and mysteriously plummet to its doom. I feel tired, yes, but not anxious. Not the kind of anxious I’m used to anyway, the fucking hell this is the end terror that grips me whenever the captain turns on the seatbelt sign. I’m ok when we lift off the ground. I’m ok when we reach cruising altitude. I’m ok when I stand up, lean over my seat and check on my boys - each nestled in a futuristic purple pod, one directly behind and in front of me - to see they are totes living the dream with their big screen TVs and their cubby holes galore and their ambient lighting. I sit back down and look out the window into darkness. We are going to be fine. We are going to Australia.

Here are the things I think of when I think of Australia before I get to Australia. Koala bears, that opera house, Steve Irwin, ‘the outback’, manly men, surfing, sharks, dingoes eating babies, Aboriginals, and Muriel’s Wedding. The phrase “Island of Misfits” comes to mind too, but where and how, who knows. Most importantly, I think of how Australia is not a real place, but a faraway land written about in travel articles, and occasionally filmed.

During the flight I listen to audiobooks - soothing and heart-wrenching Hunger and absurdly ridiculous I, Partridge - and watch six episodes of Big Little Lies. I doze, down a single glass of pinot noir, and guiltily resign myself to the perks of business class. Even during the short bouts of turbulence, I remain at ease. The only time my body clenches is halfway into our journey, when the plane shudders and bounces for what seems like a really long time, but the nice flight attendant (my inside voice still insists on stewardess) informs me that’s what always happens when ‘we cross the equator’ and as insane as it sounds, I am satisfied with the answer. I find myself basking. Which is odd, and sort of amazing. At some point, I write out a birthday card for my husband, and among the scribblings is one important, surprisingly life-affirming sentence.

“I don’t believe our story will end in tragedy.”

And it doesn’t. We land thirteen hours and twenty-nine minutes later and disembark safely and soundly, in awe at how, just like that, we have found ourselves on the literal other side of the world. I am glad we didn’t check any luggage, and that even for a two-week trip across the hemisphere, I was able to cram everything we might need into three small carry-ons. I film the boys running toward their father, him swooping them up in his arms, them delirious and overjoyed. My happiness is quiet, like waking up from a dream that didn’t quite make sense.

First things. I’m sitting on a balcony situated on the 19th floor of a tall, white skyscraper. Directly in front of me; the neon marquee of the Kurrawa Surf Club, an ocean, and a blinding sun rise. But the word ‘ocean’ seems lacking, a joke. I need a new word now, something longer, something that can hold the enormity of what it is I’m staring at. Univocean. Or maybe just a single letter. This Pacific is a planet, a floating galaxy; there is no end to its width and depth and length. Surreal is a good word, for everything I am feeling right now. I pull my sweater closer to my skin. It’s chilly, but then again it’s winter down here and in the coming days I will notice, that similar to Angelenos, Australians are quick to don scarves and boots whenever the temperature dips below sixty.

Two days in, and my jet lag has let up a bit; I stir at six am, instead of three. Patrick is sleeping; in an hour he will get up, shower and head to set. The children are on their twin beds, and having read for the requisite twenty minutes, they’re playing a game of dueling kingdoms and luck-of-the-draw survival on their fully charged iPads. I type and stare out intermittently at the rolling waves, which crash and burn, and crest over and over again. The sound of this Sisyphus-like motion is satisfying and calming. To my right I spy the spirals of equally high-reaching buildings - all of them white and whimsical, undulating shapes and strange spirals - buildings with intricate and thoughtful facades that do not mar the horizon, but somehow add to its majesty.

I feel at home in this strange place. It’s a good feeling; a reminder of how thrilling and welcoming the world can still be.

The truth is, anywhere in the world would probably have seemed like a pleasant distraction from the goings-on back in the States. Anywhere in the world would have seemed more beautiful, I’m sure. (For starters, I prefer old buildings and ruins; the sight of a centuries old cathedral or an ancient hut instantly makes me feel better about life in general.) What’s happening back home is ugly. I’m no dummy, however. No matter where one goes, there are moments in history that have been forgotten about, swept under the rug, moments I know nothing about. I’m sure Australia has its fair share of ugly. The Aboriginals weren’t exactly given the red carpet treatment here. They weren’t even regarded as part of the population - as human beings to be counted and recognized - until 1967. (I learn this later on in our trip, thanks to an article in a glossy magazine given out gratis in the Virgin Australia business class lounge, the irony.) I am sure there is ugliness here too, beyond the immaculate sunsets and breathtaking waters, and friendly g’day mate faces. I just don’t feel like looking for it. Not yet, anyway.

The ugliness back home has worn me out. I hate it. I hate when stupidity is lauded as a right, when people wave their idiot flags proudly. It’s disheartening, ridiculous and maddening - and come late June, I am done. A reprieve, or else I will crack. I am done tweeting about it. I am done calling my senators. I am done marching, protesting, wearing pink hats. I am tired of news coverage, tired of Trump, tired of pointing out the hypocrisy. I want to slip away. I want to pretend that ugly, ignorant people will once again have the courtesy to spew their hate behind closed doors, over fences, or at cotillions or whatever, like in the good old days. I want to disengage. I want to leave New Jersey. I want to forget about America. There. I said it.

Which is why when my husband tells me he probably won’t make it home before August, and that we’ll have to fly to him, I don’t panic. I just nod my head and start a list of essentials we’ll need to pack. Australia has a leg up, right from the start but I don’t know yet that I will come to love it so much in so little time.

New things. It seems easier to write about the nuts and bolts of our initial adventuring, without having to search for the appropriate words to describe anything beyond what it feels like to hold a koala bear for a minute. It feels weird.

His name is Cowen and we hold him on Friday afternoon, a few hours after landing. (Thursday was lost as we flew over the equator. There is no trace of Thursday. ) The koala is docile but his claws are sharp, and it freaks me out, but I take him, upon my sons’ joint urging. An arm under it’s rear, the other one wrapped around its torso, tight but not too tight, just like the zoo keeper instructs. No petting. No jerky movements. Just smile for the camera and hold. After Cowen - Cohen, perhaps? - we attempt to feed a bunch of kangaroos - animals which strike me as unfinished, as if God or whomever, had started on them, got to the front paws and was like fuck it, I’m tired, they can hop around like this, good enough. The animals are medium sized, lazying about the wildlife farm we tour, wary looks on their rabbit-like faces, their middle claws extending far beyond the other three, the noncommittal display of an eternal middle finger. Our guide, the owner, raises his eyebrows when my husband introduces me as “Dag, my wife.” Because dag means something different here. It means the dried bits of shit that cling to a sheep buttocks - so from here on out I become “Dagmara, my wife.”

Suffice it to say, the marsupials are a hit with the boys. “Well, our work here is done” I wink, as if seeing koalas and kangaroos was all there was to Australia, because movies, because dumb tourists. To top it off, we buy two boomerangs at the gift shop before we head to set. 

We are really here, my husband is real again; I can reach for his hand, I can catch whiffs of his smell. And I can’t see straight.

We take a picture with Dolph Lundgren in front of a trailer. Dolph is tall, and without his Ivan Drago accent, I am slightly thrown. Is it really him? We walk around cavernous stages draped with swaths of blue screen, partaking of the crafty table which do not have loads of shit candy like Twizzlers, or dry pretzels on it, but instead, as in a patisserie, offers freshly baked brownies and fluffy peanut butter sandwiches. We meet Aquaman’s real life children and they are beautiful and quite the conversationalists. I learn quickly that they take Capoeira classes and aren’t allowed on any sort of electronic devices, and my heart twists enviously at that tidbit. I want to be that parent, I think. Suddenly I want to be Lisa Bonet. Aquaman himself looks like a very attractive beast of a man, with a gorgeous face and very thin calves. He’s very sweet but I am way too tired for anything beyond “so nice to meet you.”

Later, the boys and I fall asleep at the ungodly hour of 5pm, and wake up at 4am. We stand on the balcony silently staring out at the roiling ocean. Then we film ourselves trying Vegemite, which tastes like an old scrotum sack, and I actually say that aloud, much to the giddy shock of my boys. “Shhhh, we’re gonna wake Daddy…” 

Australia, one day in, is just a feeling. It is not a specific city, nor is it the literal continent - for now, we are ensconced in a suburb of Brisbane, a small stretch of hustle and bustle and beach somewhere on the Gold Coast.

Little things. The Palmolive orange scented hand soap in the bathroom reminds me of Poland; the smell left lingering on my hands sends me reeling toward childhood summers and yet I can’t recall exactly why - did my Babcia have similarly scented shampoo? A dish washing liquid she used? I don’t know, and I don’t care, and I remind myself daily to purchase some to take back to New Jersey with me. (I never do.) We take a day trip. Byron Bay is lovely, and I know Chris Hemsworth lives there, so that’s fun. My husband drives expertly on the left side of the road, pointing out landmarks and oddities, and we spend an hour on the beach, where surfers swim with dolphins in blue water that is cold and transparent.

I have yet to see a church, mosque or synagogue. The only bookstore I spot is in a mall that looks like it fell from the skies in 1999 and stayed that way. It’s dusty, and full of used, out-of-print paperbacks, all floral covers, volumes on doilies and flower arrangements. I purchase a word search book for three bucks.

The breakfasts are delicious; thick bread with a strong crust, yellow butter, slices of rosy ham, fried eggs like they’ve been painted to life. The coffee takes ages to arrive but arrives frothy and creamy and absolutely perfect. The only thing that makes me queasy is the sight of poached eggs arriving at our table - three oval white sacks with sagging skin, like things we’d find washed up on shore or in a bird’s nest. Slimy when in tact, and slimier still when my husband stabs one with a fork - the thick orange yolk oozes out like congealed blood. The word for bathroom is toilet and signs for TOILETS hang everywhere, and it’s truly the only puzzling thing I’ve encountered so far. The public playgrounds are impressive, like things from Dali’s imagination; colorful and bright and full of twisted contraptions and gigantic slides and zip lines and huge swaying nets that hang like UFOs, like things Tarzan swung on. 

The people are terrific. I’m sure if I spent an appropriate amount of time with any one of them, they might become annoying or overbearing, but my casual, quick brushes with the natives are reassuring. Waiters, police officers, retail clerks, security guards are so nice and helpful it’s overwhelming. They make innocuous yet meaningful inquires; how are things going? Back in the States, they mean, wink wink, Trump Trump. We are to be pitied now, us poor, duped, stupefied Americans. Everyone is referred to as mate, including my sons. It’s like our pal, I suppose, but sounds far less condescending and much more inclusive when the Aussies say it. They’re thick skinned too, I can tell. Conversely, I think of the opposite when I think of my fellow citizens - our thin, easily bruised egos. Coming from a place filled with people prone to screeching, pining and preening like adolescents, it’s quite a breath of fresh air to be surrounded by fully-formed adults, comfortable and confident in their skin, who smile at you because they mean it, not because it’s required of them.

We try in vain to imitate the accent, each of us failing in our efforts to mimic the musicality, the ease, the lazy, soft vowels. Thirteen is thudeen. The first few times my husband says doday you, I have no idea what he means. He means .AU - as in the end of an email address. To pash means to kiss fervently. An “old feller” is a penis. She’ll be right is my favorite though - the Australian way of implying that whatever is wrong shall right itself with time. Towns have names like Coolangatta and Gympie. It’s all fantastic. Our oldest son says he wants to move here. But here only becomes real when we remember the globe in my office back in New Jersey, and how we traced the path from mainland America all the way across the surface, so far to go, the wobbling tip of my finger taking forever to make its way toward the land down under, the land beyond our imagination. “Can you believe we are actually here?” is a question posed a few times a day. We answer with shaking heads, at a loss for words.

If they could, the boys would not leave the beach, despite my worries they will catch a cold. I stand in the water like a sentinel, watching them hurtle into the waves, trying not to think about their freezing toes, or the articles I’ve read listing the top ten deadliest animals found in Australia like the thumb-nail sized Irukandji jellyfish which can kill grown man. Or the cone snail which has venom one thousand times stronger than morphine and leaves you paralyzed and gasping for life. Or sharks. Helicopters do fly over us, checking for errant fins and such, and my husband has assured me that nets are dropped and secured to keep the jellyfish and bluebottles and stingrays away, but really, what’s it take for a predator to swim over a net? Still, I let the boys carouse. I let them swim, dive, run away from and straight toward the blue-grey waves. I am less panicked about everything.

Things that don’t matter. My period is many days late. Traveling across the international date line will do that to a body. I am walking around crampy, bloated and terribly grumpy. It’s a real problem, and I make no bones about explaining to my sons about what’s happening to me. Mommy is moody because she’s about to bleed from her vagina. I joke to my friend in a text sent at 6am her time, that my period probably came on Thursday, only Thursday never really happened, did it? Under this black cloud, the kids are annoying. They seem glaringly American - loud, insistent, spoiled by the first-rate everything they are experiencing. I am the first to call them out on all of this and the first to recklessly bid 120 dollars on a toad named Gay Freddo just so my kid can take part in ‘racing’ it at a musty boozy-smelling establishment called Iron Bar (this, when we get to the tropics.)

Our first week is spent walking a fine line between total fun and total mom-losing-her-shit. Of not kissing my husband. Of wanting to buy everything, and taste everything, especially the foreign sounding snacks - Koala Carmellos, Curlywurlys, Starburst “Babies.” I wish I was a hard drinker, or even a lightweight one, so I could ‘pep’ it up come evening. Mornings are the best because I wake up ‘here’ all over again, mentally renewing a covenant - enjoy your blessed life, goddamn it. But then my beautiful son wakes up and greets me by asking if he can poop with his iPad and I grit my teeth, “poop with a book!” I think of Aquaman’s daughter, with the hair down to her waist, like a perfect, feral creature who’s never begged to download an app.

I eat too much and don’t brush my teeth enough. I wear the same black, sack-like dress over and over again. I should not have brought three pairs of shoes with me as the only ones I bother with are the cheap flip flops. I don’t care about looking like the wife of a semi-famous actor. Perhaps I should.

We arrive in Cairns - pronounced like cans - at nine pm, on day seven. Cairns is a city in the North Queensland tropics. The airport is small, but just like the one in Brisbane, it is bright, modern, spotless. I am incredibly impressed and dying to shop, but fight the urge. Outside an enormous full moon - like a prop some grip hung - greets me as I squat down to vape, while the boys wait at baggage claim. I take out my camera and zoom in. The balmy, salty air reminds me of Florida. We are here, again, a vacation inside a vacation. We drive an hour north, toward a small tourist spot called Port Douglas (pop. 1278) where ‘the rainforest meets the reef,’ a terrific family getaway, according to many a Trip Advisor testimony.

The drive is difficult, as my husband navigates on a narrow, winding road which is in turn shrouded by immense thick canopies of jungle greenery and then completely exposed to a cliff leading toward a dark, rumbling ocean that we cannot see at this time of night, but can only hear. It’s eerie, a bit like a scene from a horror movie, where any moment something large and mysterious and predatory will jump into the road and slam into our car. My husband drives on, trying to concentrate as I annoy him by asking him why we haven’t planned things in advance and reminding him that he isn’t perfect, you know.

We fight a lot in Port Douglas. The boys fight, and Patrick and I fight. The fights are absurd and revolve around sold out tours and the necessity of guides if we get to Mossman Gorge (we never do), and how ‘crocodile shows’ sound inhumane. We fight about screen time, and where to go to dinner, and about not getting sand everywhere. Reunions are difficult sometimes. When absences become the norm, togetherness takes work. That’s all I want to mention. Bickering does occur in paradise, if you were curious.

Strange things. Every time Hagrid the Crocodile clamps his jaws down on what looks like a decimated broomstick, bits of rope and rag tied to its end, I jump in my seat. When he chomps there’s an echoing sound like a champagne cork popping, only amplified, as if Hagrid is miccd. It’s nerve wracking - and as jolly and engaging as the emcee is, I find myself thinking we shouldn’t be doing this. Crocodiles are mean, and aggressive, and you don’t survive 3 million years on this earth by being the nice guy. They hate each other, the crocs do, or so we are told. You never survive an attack either. You’re a goner, if you dare to swim amongst them. We take a slow boat ride around a lagoon, and watch a dozen of them - with names like Ted and Louie - stealthily follow our boat, sidle up and wait for their bits of raw pink chicken. God, those jaws.

We take pictures, and feel much better a few minutes later as we walk amongst wallabies and roos. I say roo now with utmost confidence, feeling like after a week abroad, I have earned it. At the gift shop we buy t-shirts, a crocodile calling whistle, and a soft, stuffed kangaroo which my oldest son immediately christens Jeremy. I ask my husband if crocodile printed man thongs called “Snappers!” are the perfect gifts for my brothers-in-law. Sadly, he shakes his head no.

Snorkeling in the Low Isles is interesting. We figure 90 minutes to the Great Barrier Reef would make us tired and seasick - suddenly we strike ourselves as amateurs but go with it - and opt for a quick, rollicking jaunt aboard the Reef Sprinter. We pull up to the low reef and immediately a smell hits us hard. Fishy. Rotting. I don the wet suit, get fitted with a prescription lens snorkeling mask (which is very exciting,) slip into the flippers, and I even jump into the water. And then four meaty, massive fish graze my thighs, and I am done. It’s hard work, and breathing is weird, and suddenly I feel claustrophobic, and the smell is overwhelming, and the coral is too close - low tide due to full moon - and I am totally fine swimming back to the boat that brought us out. It’s just as brave to admit your fears, as it is to conquer them, I say being funny, but also meaning it. I spend the remainder of my time sneaking in puffs of my vape and taking pictures of my boys. They’re proud of me anyway. My little guy heads back too, after twenty valiant minutes with his tiny head in the water. I can’t say enough how thrilled I am that both my sons have inherited their father’s joie de vivre and adventuresome spirit. They are usually up for anything. You go right ahead, I tell them, and I’ll stay here and write about it. Later, we race cane toads - don’t ask, or just look up the Iron Bar in Port Douglas - and go back to the hotel, where the boys are reunited with their iPads, and I sit on the deck and listen to annoying British teenagers thrash around in the communal pool, and wonder when my bad mood will lift.

Best things. My period arrives in Sydney, and finally I turn back to my good old self. My good mom self. I am happy. My back doesn’t hurt. My smiles are wide, and last all day long. Sydney is a glorious city. Imagine a turn of the century town, imagine Boston, or New Orleans, or even Paris, and then imagine it fully preserved, allowing modernity to sprout, but not take over. That’s Sydney - where the antiquated bits remain front and center, and the high rises merely loom as shadows. A gorgeous thing, for time to conjoin, to mingle, to not be erased. I can’t get enough. I also can’t pinpoint what this place reminds me of, only the emotions it stirs inside me - nostalgia, happiness, wonder.

On our first night we walk to the Sydney Observatory and stare out in awe at the skyline; the Harbour Bridge twinkling red and green like a Christmas Tree, the opera house way off in the distance like a paper fan on water, a brilliant crimson sunset. Someone is flying a drone. The boys run down the hill and attempt to climb a giant tree straight out of a Roal Dahl book. We could live here, I say stupidly, contentedly, and I kind of mean it. It’s possible to enjoy life, to eek every ounce of magic and wonder from it, without fear or fret. It’s possible to pretend we are a family of well-off nomads, traversing carefree, imagining a life abroad, living only for the sake of experiencing happiness. It’s possible for life to be like from a movie. Thoughts like this are hard to come by for me, and for ten minutes, sitting in the cool grass on a picturesque knoll overlooking a strange, gorgeous city, I allow myself.

There are more brown people is Sydney, more Asians, more tourists speaking Dutch or German or Portuguese, and in some street corners, as we head toward the aquarium, I even spy tattered sleeping bags which house the homeless. The line to get into Sea Life is long and winding and I am glad my kids will have to wait. I worry that always skipping ahead, or often flying business, or staying in five-star hotels is ruining them somehow - that they won’t know how to deal with real life, that soon they’ll take our good fortune for granted because it will cease to become out-of-the-ordinary and become banal. Which is why at every stop, I regale them with stories of my poor-immigrant beginnings. There was no Fast Pass when I was a kid, my husband quips. I sat in the back of the plane back when people were allowed to smoke, I point out, nine hours to Poland with only a book and my head aching from the fumes, imagine it. I want them to really imagine it, and later, when it takes us thirty minutes to get on the rickety Wild Mouse roller coaster at Luna Park, I am glad, and decide to get on too, even though I hate that shit.

Everywhere we go, the rooftops of old buildings boast edifices with historic dates inscribed into the original brick. On the sidewalks are stone slabs fitted into the pavement which tell short, amazing stories: “17 well-behaved convicts where made night watchmen here.” These reminders of the city’s history are beautiful, and I wish my adopted New York City showed the same pride and care. My husband explains that NYC is on a small island and in an effort to expand and make room, the city had to eradicate whatever stood in the way. It couldn’t bloom sideways or into suburbs - there are no suburbs, no outer city limits, unless you count Hoboken et al. Still, I wish Americans in general, held a higher regard for their architecture, and their roots.

The Langham Hotel on Kent Street is accented in pink. A creamy pink old-timey cab sits out front, the bathroom wallpaper is pink, and the pens bedside are pink and gold and so lovely that I slip one into my purse. When you walk into the lobby, you are taken aback by how immaculate every surface is, and by the floral scent in the air. This place smells like a bathtub, my seven-year-old announces and I know what he means. Like a bathtub full of rose petals. We could be in a Jane Austen novel, if Jane Austen had taken up the hospitality service. Everything is warm - from the silky sheets to the velvet floor length drapery - and opulent - from the extraordinary chandeliers in the lobby to the the enormous purple orchids arranged on many a marble tabletop. I’d live here too, if I was not a real person who went to sleep without wiping off her make-up, or who snuck vanilla nougat at 1am while reading a book about a recluse, or who grew up in the Glenwood Housing Projects and never forgot her past. I imagine my mother here, my sisters. I imagine my father, who would probably nit pick and point out discrepancies, because my father is a person who does not know how to trust beautiful things.

At a chemist’s my son pleads with me to buy him a pair of yellow sloughing shower gloves. These, along with a glitter filled rainbow-colored baton, are to make up his regalia. He is “The Wisher” now, and for the rest of our stay in Sydney he walks around wearing the gloves and gripping his baton, asking us to make wishes, which will, on an eighty percent guarantee, come true. I wish for a smooth flight back to Newark, and for my 41st year on earth to be the best one yet. The rare Pokemon my older son wishes for comes to fruition a few blocks later, much to his joy and to The Wisher’s complete shock. We walk around The Rocks, a neighborhood full of chocolate shops and galleries, making more and more wishes, until at the Museum of Contemporary Art we are told the baton must be cloaked. Instead, I bury it in my purse, and we roam around, not hiding our disdain for some of the more abstract artwork like blank white canvases, or a dried sculpture of an electrical plug. During security check at the airport, the wishing baton is left behind in a bin. I am unreasonably sad about it.

Things we talk about. Manners. Money. School. Food. Animals. Dreams. We find dream dictionaries online and look up flying, teeth crumbling, falling into holes with cousins, when a friend pushes the girl you have a crush on over a cliff. We wonder why dreams happen, we dissect the inner workings of our varied brains, while Bill, our driver pretends not to listen. He tells us about the beaches here, and what to watch out for. He tells us that Brad Pitt made him try the Batman free fall ride at Movie World. We talk about love, and what country we’d move to for a year if we had to, if we had a choice. We talk about how boring New Jersey will seem, and what we’ll do to occupy the remains of our summer once we are back home. We play endless rounds of Would You Rather - would you rather have penises growing our of your ears or a butthole on your chin? (Because, lest we forget I am in the company of three basic males.) We talk about our favorite things so far (snorkeling, the amusement park, seeing a wallaby with a baby in its pouch) and what we want to do before we depart. We talk about how we will not climb Harbour Bridge, because Kass doesn’t meet the age requirement and because well, mommy doesn’t want to die in Sydney. Mostly, we talk about how goddamn lucky we are.

The last things. Back in Brisbane, or Broadbeach, or Gold Coast - I still don’t know what to call it - we don’t fall asleep till very late. Our jet lag is gone now, no traces left. Instead we have trouble falling asleep and trouble waking up at a decent hour. I finish the book I bought at a wonderful bookstore I finally stumbled upon in the other mall, and having relayed the plot as I learned it to my sons, they are now eager to hear how it ends. I tell them, and we are all three, just a wee bit disappointed. It is eleven pm, and I start on another book, short stories about the indigenous and minority Australian experience. My husband puts in loads of laundry, and watches a rugby game on TV. Tomorrow is our last day and we have no major plans aside a final frolic in the ocean, a trip to the mall to purchase some local sports jerseys and more books. Maybe we’ll go to the movies. I have strange dreams about cutting off all my hair. We walk up at ten am, groggy, and quiet. We don’t want to go home just yet.

I am sitting on the balcony again. It’s hard to believe two weeks have gone by. It’s hard to believe our real life is waiting for us, and that in twenty-four hours we will be reunited with the dogs and guinea pigs, back in all the ennui and humidity the East Coast has to offer. Already we are making plans for more trips. There will be six weeks of summer left when we get back. This makes us happy. I look across the way warily, squinting to make out the familiar figures of my three boys, my companions on this journey. I love them more than I did when we started this trip, and perhaps that is the best outcome of any vacation.

There is nobody in the water but them - it must be truly cold today. The waves are no joke. Every time a child screams I stop and cock my head to ascertain if the echoing sound - of panic? joy? - is familiar to me. For a minute I worry that the something awful I briefly contemplated two weeks ago, will happen today, now, as I write this. A jellyfish sting. A rip tide. A shark. I sip my orange juice and remind myself about that sentence I jotted down in my husband’s birthday card, about how our story won’t end tragically. Our story will end quietly, naturally, after many adventures, many idle hours full of love, tiffs, and laughter. It will end when it is supposed to end, and I will have nothing to do with it. For now, I stare out at the mighty Pacific, and smile, my mind already humming with newly formed memories. I smile knowing that wherever we are, or wherever we end up next, as long as we are together - she’ll be right.

[eksbdan-blog]

New Post has been published on https://passingbynehushtan.com/2019/05/29/christ-vs-the-hermeneutical-death-spiral/

Christ vs. the Hermeneutical Death Spiral, part 1

The Hermeneutical Death Spiral

I have a problem: I’m a Christian. As a Christian, I am constantly being compelled to silence by those who are religiously attached to a world and a kind of thought that is violently opposed to Christ.

Now, that does not seem to be a very good problem statement for an article with the stated intention of bringing to light unaddressed ones. Nearly every Christian worldview apologetic you will read will speak about, for example, the various solutions to the increasing passivity of believers against and increasing certainty of the street that the Christ is losing to science. Although on the surface my complaint seems the same, mostly about the Church having to function righteously despite an ever-increasing onslaught of anti-biblical theologies, it’s not.   Here, it’s not in the same way as Christ intended it to be, silenced in the static of meaning that is the world’s language that can never speak of it. Lost in its meaning of “theology.” Lost in its understanding of “world.” Lost in its avatar of “Christ” which is now everyone who is well-intentioned, loves cats and wants to save the rainforests. Anyone acclimated to the world’s default modes of communication will take for granted as true the accepted ultimate definitions of its keywords.

Those ultimate definitions, however, if they are framed within the cultural ethos, are no so ultimate. If one can accept that how something hides most completely is in plain sight, in hermeneutics the rules of meaning are defined essentially as lying within a statement, a philosophy, an opinion, an intuition. Hidden and waiting to be fleshed out. Not defined by the very perspicuous attractions of the human heart which make mundane things exalted and exalted things mundane.

There is my introduction to hermeneutics. It’s everything. Its the battle for meaning, yes, but as a Christian, it should be the about the war fought against the powers of obscurity, culture, intellectualism, human organizations, the love for strife, puzzles, and industry. Hermeneutics in Christianity is supposed to be the establishment of what has been given to us, not made by us, concerning meaning. But we have become absorbed into the flotsam and jetsom of LifeWay Christian Store consciousness. Have you ever heard the phrase “we’re screwed?” This is about how “screwed” we are, because of our fallen hermeneutical method.

My opening problem statement is about Christianity and its hermeneutics, which is the story about its establishment and fall, and a fall in which we now live and call Christian and don’t know it because it has no meaning, no hermeneutics. It’s about what is now our fierce fight not against poor spiritual vision in which we must constantly strive to improve, but a striving for a world with a permanent dark glass in which we are to see that beatific vision, keeping it locked in only imagination and possibility. It’s not about the unbelievers, this hermeneutics in which Christianity has agreed, but those “religiously attached to a world and a kind of thought that is violently opposed to Christ” whose method of meaning deludes them into thinking they are his champions.

My message is that nothing you can believe about anything and disagree or agree with another about has anything to do with whether who is true or false, or whether we are true or false in our hearts, by what is being said, but true or false by whether what is being said is informed or misinformed by one unstated fact and phenomena that the NT writers took for granted and which alone frames the spiritual context of all meaning. Say something wrong and it can be changed and made right. But get the main thing wrong and nothing but a special and miraculous act of God can be done about it. How ironic and unexpected, but strangely appropriate, that in our hundreds of years in writing libraries of books on Christain hermeneutics, sure that the problems and solutions to the correct reading of the sacred texts have to do with bad procedures, attitudes, and presuppositions, all along the problem and solution was not there. It was in the meaning first of the fundamental, biblical ground to the meaning of “Christian hermeneutics” which we have rejected, and which subsequently tainted, fatally, every attempt to get at transcendent meaning.

Meaning, and real Christian hermeneutics, has been hiding in plain sight. We have missed it because obscurity is our true love, not Christ, and because of that fact, not in spite of it.

The Divine Trickster

The Greek god Hermes represented many things. The trickster. The master of boundaries. Of trade and sports. But if you were to settle on one it would be something like “divine trickster” in his role as messenger to Man from the God’s. The Greek word hermēneuō means interpretation or translate. Hermeneutics is usually spoken of as around biblical texts and retains this original meaning in an assumption that there is an upper, immediately comprehensible layer to the text and a deeper one which requires an application of hermeneutical rules to reveal and understand. This is because it was written in another time, language and culture by a certain individual.  But no less because of the belief that if God were the author and meant the Bible for all times, he both bridged the cross-historical problem and then used his sacred symbolism as the bases on which to reunite all those who search for the truth to agree on it once it is found in that symbolism. We will see that in time the meaning of “Hermes the divine trickster” came to be understood much like Christian hermeneutics: far more locked into a past, little understood, antiquated and spiritually ignorant culture than an example of how God’s hermeneutics, not man’s, is the first order of business.

Hermes brought the word of the gods to man, but this part implies something that we have entirely lost in the highest notion of what it means to interpret and derive meaning from another if both parties are ontologically, radically different. In the case of both man and God, the reason that rules of interpretation are codified is that one understands himself much easier than we may understand another. Hermeneutics stresses listening to another, and whether man or God, this other is a foreign source for which we are required to exercise some care, reflection, and effort to fully understand if we care, and not operate under naive assumptions about him. The Greeks could stop here in their efforts to understand the gods because the gods were so much like them.  Not in Christianity and Judaism. Here, hermeneutics is not in the service of men to other men or supermen, or even man with respect to “God’s word,” since that phrase is constructed in a way that makes it just as fraught with divine but ultimately false conceptual gods. Hermeneutics is supposed to be about finding first what God ultimately values and his chosen method of communication, God’s hermeneutics, which he expects man to find, accept and learn through some level of effort in a display of a love of Truth.

I want to speak of Hermeneutics in a way that has been implied but never taken seriously and worked: Hermeneutics in our first responsibility of grasping what God’s rules of meaning might be for us, by which we are obliged to know, before we start talking about what are our found rules of meaning for understanding God. It’s a lot like a talk on sacred symbolism: are symbols only man created objects, creative, finite, perhaps “unreal,” changeable and cursory, or are they not fundamentally something that God creates, like the physical universe itself, for us to understand him? Doesn’t hermeneutics have to be something God created and revealed, something found and applied before it is something that we make and apply? And doesn’t it have to be a fact before it is taken seriously and forms the basis of a theory, a method?

If we were still in the time of Homer, our divines of present and past could be excused to remain like the Oracle at Delphi, who, by enveloping themselves in the sacred smoke of the bottomless pit before them, would fall into an ecstatic trance and begin babbling incomprehensible messages from Zeus to be translated by an accompanying priest. Something perhaps about the outcome of a war, whether good fortune would be the result of a business trip or whether a certain woman would be a good wife. Our hermeneutics could be justifiably locked into the same pattern, out of which we gain nothing but confidence that our carnal affairs would in the future be in order, but we are not supposed to be so helpless today. We are supposed to have a real, testable message from a real objective God, not one out of the very rich imagination of man. The need for the babblers is supposed to be over, replaced by a divine hermeneutic in the minds of honest men from which to resolve all meaning that matters, a meaning which is supposed to be much more compelling to the mind and heart than denounced and discarded.

The black hole of Delphi is covered and graded, and a barbecue pit and cabana set up over it. The smoke is, if it appears at all, would only be an artistic expression of praise and prayer in what is a quiet place of contemplation. That is, to us that are Christian who know and believe that a real revelation, not a fantasy, has been given, which makes symbols cursory carriers of meaning and not meaning itself. To the others in the church, the struggle, the naivete, the Mysterium, the hermeneutic of darkness can never be allowed closure when the Oracle is still in full operation and continuously expanded into a spiritual theme park, where each worship ride even ideas are represented, alongside one for rocks, feelings, reason, and Zeus.

The purpose of this article is to establish what is fundamentally wrong with Christian theology, what is wrong with ourselves, what we have thrown away that God thought essential, and by such action why we have become sure that a spiritual empowerment of ourselves has taken place while it is really more like drinking a slow poison. Hermeneutics is at its heart, and especially the biblical idea of “fulfillment.” This is our theodical starting point. Everything else is a mere side interest.

Words Mean Things. God’s Word Means Things Higher.

What I mean by “anti-biblical theologies” and “thought violently opposed to Christ” is by no means henceforth revealed in my initial problem statement. It requires some hermeneutics because it’s designed to imply more and surprise you when my intended meaning is revealed. But what is supposed to be more surprising is not necessarily my meaning, but the way that we carry around an almost unbreakable assumption about having to favor how the world expects us to think of the highest possible value instead of favoring what is before us that is quite obviously of an infinitely higher value. Of course, I am not speaking of communication in mundane affairs, but language meant to communicate what is expected to be the great questions of existence. Not “what is the best interpretation for greasing of the spiritual skids of a cultural ethos.” Nearly all of that aims not for a view of the spiritual except through the cultural lens first. But for a religion that is supposed to be transmitting a message from an alien world and Person, taking “Jesus is Lord” as “Jesus is master, sovereign, the decider of men’s souls,” or any statement that that could come exclusively from culture, is a religion promising heaven but giving only what the culture could produce on its own.

“What?! You’re saying that Jesus is not Master and Judge?!” Oh my no. I’m saying  quite the opposite, that his mastery and means of judgment go far beyond the natural and disposable implications of our understanding of “master” and “judge.” Its hermeneutics, you know. It’s all about hermeneutics.

You may think I’m shooting blanks so far, but what I have just done is shown the root of the problem of evil.  Simply, it’s hidden in a divine parable, exposable only by divine hermeneutics,  because we deliberately hide it from ourselves, addicted to anything except that which exposes us.

Please go to the next page…

First Hint: What only God Can Do and What Man Can Do.

Christ is against that “world thought paradigm.” Nothing is startling about that kind of antagonism. That paradigm is just the common, culturally influenced way of understanding the world and using language to communicate it. But that is the real problem that the statement hides. Since we as Christians believe that his antagonism in this is not entirely borrowed out of the fevered brains of wandering tinfoil hatted conspiracy theorists, but supernaturally transmitted by God, I think I am compelled to think that a transcendently communicated problem should be as unique and remarkable and unexpected as the mind and person of its alien origin and to who it is meant to address as an influence of alien origin. Is “the world is against God” supposed to be taken as a great revelation that man would never have obtained without God’s special intervention by the incarnation? Is “have faith in God and you will be saved” supposed to be an example of the ultimate teaching and warning of God that waited thousands of years until Christ came? Is “we are saved by Christ’s work on the Cross” or “a person is saved by works and faith,” where “work” is, well, what Christ did by dying and a “faith” which is, just, umm, faith, supposed to be revelatory, startling and utterly impossible to have come from the minds of unenlightened men?

We don’t have that strangeness and unexpectedness upfront here by the expectations of a certain opaque and common and man-made and motivated hermeneutic, but if we begin thinking about it as a potential for meaning in the service of a real revelation, our hermeneutic is controlled by a divine source, not our puny brains.

Christ is against the world thought paradigm, but “Christ” and the “world thought paradigm,” if they are themselves examples of that world thought paradigm, are not gateways to our understanding of Christ, and then gateways to what really constitutes the “world thought paradigm” of ambiguous or optional meaning, either. The power of autonomous ideas and those ideas, which defines that paradigm, need not have originated exclusively by an objectively, transcendent Christ and outside of the world thought paradigm. The ideas are potentially converted to meaning, but if converted only by an act of pure choice and not guided by a compelling transcendent influence they are by definition only symbolic reflections only of a human conversion ability and priority. If there was any idea unexpected and foreign enough unsuited to that insular kind conversion, the act of conversion itself would have its character that is a reflection of the unusual as well. But on its face, neither the task of conversion of symbol-to-meaning that is being asked to perform is any more transcendent than what is being asked to convert. Unless, of course, we presume the conversion of idea to meaning is being asked by a demonstrated, revealed Christ of history entirely outside of mans’ natural noetic influences.

We are talking about hermeneutics? Take the word “anti-biblical” in my theodical problem statement. Do I mean the Catholic version, the Protestant version, or the Jehovah’s Witness’s version of “anti-biblical?” The Universalists and the atheists also have theirs. Am I speaking of the pedestrian or academic sensibility on the general subject of theodicy? Why would we automatically assume that they are in error or not only by comparison to one of the other operational and accepted modes? Because they are all sufficiently transcendentally opaque, prosaic and innocuous so that nothing of unexpected lethality jumps out from God at us. They are our world. What man has come up with, the choices he has presented us, are everything we have to work with. There are no alternatives but what our consensus says there are.

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Who is the Word, Them or All of Us? The Theodicy  of Ideas

It’s time for us to face the fact that every single problem we have, far from our number of opportunities and a dearth of clever men to tackle them, is that although we claim to use biblical ideas because they are found in the Bible, we do it in a way that is not exclusively dependent upon a demonstrable transcendent, biblical premise to give those errors their final resolution, and one that is quite remarkable and unexpected, not prosaic, not common. Because of that we, hermeneutically, are part of the “world thought paradigm.” Christ is against the world thought paradigm, and to the extent that Christ can be shown as a transcendent fact and not a dream, the world thought paradigm, the evil that opposes him, is all of our horrible “starts with an idea, not with a premise” approach to theology that renders every biblical notion we put our hands on bromidic, of general definition, and puerile. Face it, we have fully come to believe that we will be saved or know God by the worship of insular and idiomatic ideas, not through the inspiration from miraculous historical facts that could only have been made by a Supreme Being outside space/time.

Please be advised that when I say that the real Christian thought is not convertible to something common is not to say that it is a reality so compelling that it can’t be denied or reused for something counter-purpose. I mean an original transcendent idea makes it uniquely inefficient to fuel a mundane converted use. We don’t have one, at least not one in common use.

Our problem with this puerile and opaque use of biblical ideas, like a “faith” which means faith in theological statements, conclusions and propositions, and Christ who is the Son of God but not necessarily exclusively through the prophets, but through a vision, a dream, or any reason we so wish, goes back to the Greeks and beyond into the pagan talismanic religions. We are obsessed with the independent power of concepts that can originate exclusively out of the human mind to transmit true knowledge, thinking of them as having an independent existence, such that the power of the idea alone is sufficient to carry whatever content it holds. It was, in fact, necessary and understandable for a long time in the absence of a real revelation, a real demonstration of an objective divine being, but, as I have said, it’s not supposed to be after the Cross if, in fact, we believe that the “Cross” is not convertible to a purely human concept of prosaic understanding like “love,” “death,” and “sacrifice.”

Atheists can say the same about Christians, putting themselves as the light bearers in a dark world in which theism reigns. My opening sentence need not exclusively imply the problem of a good God and creation in which evil exists, making it subject to conversion for the use of anyone who might take “God” and put themselves in his place and take “evil” and put their antagonists. The entirety of the thought may be so coopted because of the way the words used in an unqualified sense. That is why you can’t use it, or anything like it, to lead an investigation into Christian hermeneutics. It’s a non-transcendent language.

But ideas are not the problem. Its autonomous, creative, self-indulgent, unmiraculous ideas. If I accept, for example, the seemingly counter-cultural idea of a theodicy where the evil that kills the good mind is necessarily grounded in the independent power of the concepts “God,” “goodness”, “evil,” “perfection” and “people.” Well, their definitions are not the problem. Ideas are no problem. Using them is not a problem. The evil religious object of use is the ideas, and the evil idea, that is so because it is not beholden to anything but us.

If the “good” is, however, not the autonomous concept, but could otherwise only be an autonomous divine demonstration which demands and projects those concepts into the world for its mere representation, then this is the theodical solution. If not, the whole theodical question is irrational if we expect one. This implies a theodicy based on the good and evil of fundamental divine ideas, where the divine is not imperfect in the sense of a being, and evil is not evil in the sense of physical phenomena, but good and evil in the sense of truly good divine ideas which do not dictate but serve what has been divinely dictated. We might then rephrase the theodical problem like this: why do good, divine ideas suffer by the presence of evil tyrannical ones, or, if there is truth out there, why does it seem so hard to find, keep unmolested, and challenged by what seems so many attractive mundane alternatives?

The subject of theodicy is not why do bad things happen to good people, which is a philosophical statement. It begins with “bad,” “things” and “good,” which concepts make up the statement. And, no, I am not about to say exactly what true concepts ground the statement, because concepts themselves are statements. That would be asking to define a concept by another concept. I would ask: what grounds presumably divine concepts in divine premises? Whatever they are, these are the true masters of “bad,” “things,” and “good.”

Now, if you’re writing a book on Christian theology or church history, what better ground to the subject of the outworking of its errors than addressing the issue of what is driving the cultural, rational and systematic forces that encourage them? The persistent theme of the solitary pilgrim in a hostile world, rejected by the crowd, crying in the wilderness for righteousness, persecuted by the world but beloved of God, is not a significant direct point of contact with what is supposed to fundamentally inform our search for theological truth in that world because they are not divinely qualified, but only have a potentiality of divine starting place.

The right assumption is that the world, defined as the vast majority of the working modes of theology, is in a state unconverted by revelation and hostile to Christ. It would be best for us to start at the point of skepticism about our commonly accepted fundamental working ground instead of jumping in to build on the shifting sand (Matthew 7:24-27) of religious ideas. But we don’t. We are not these theological pilgrims, but something else entirely.

When we read this, as fully acclimated residents of this world, we are inclined to automatically make certain unconscious assumptions about what is a Christian, who is Christ, what is a Christian in a secular world, who are supposed to be his champions and what are the faith’s true systems of thought. This is where my problem begins: our chosen working assumptions and their motivations, not the belief that results from them that we like to call “doctrines.”

Where do our assumptions about genuine Christianity, and its antagonists, really come from?  What qualifies, in the true Christian worldview, as the secular world and the spiritual world of Christ? After all, if I say I have a problem being a Christian in a world violently opposed to Him, I think the most crucial question for me before saying that my irritation is grounded in reality is whether my informed affectations driving it are not more rooted in allegiance to the oppressor instead of the truly oppressed. It’s not only about consideration of “presuppositions” as a general rule of hermeneutics because presuppositions are also the result of both premises and conclusions. It’s more about what specifically prior and foundational loves and key biblical phenomena which are thought not exclusively the product of the human mind compelled a general presupposition about my condition. Indeed,  telling ourselves that the quality of our “presuppositions” is at the root of our delusions or clarity is to little effect in telling us anything about whether we are right or wrong unless there is true, revelational and specific content in our general “presupposition” container.

What if our working understanding of Christian thought for the past 1800 years, and therefore anti-christian thought, is its conflation with whatever the zeitgeist thinks it is, with the resulting dysfunction of the Church being its increasing detachment and alexithymia toward the original consciousness of its founder? I’m not talking about the content between the general categories of “Christ” and “Antichrist,” “sin and “righteousness,” “faith” and “unbelief,” “power” and “weakness,” “rich” and “poor,” “hate” and  “love.” But it is hardly controversial to say that since “Christ” is a singular entity, of a single transcendentally transmitted document, then no matter how much we use general categories to lead us into discussions about their nature and importance, if these are also generally grounded in essentially philosophical categories then we can’t possibly use them as starting points to reliably lead us to anything specific about Christ or what he is trying to tell us which is not philosophy, but essentially showing us transcendence. If we could, we would be those within the secular zeitgeist, not without, and therefore the oppressor, not the oppressed.

I might restate this here: The problem is simply that here, in the physical and philosophical conceptual world into which we are born, there is a great amount of personal reward gain by engaging some belief which starts with a fundamental belief, not a fundamental premise, where “premise” is not rooted in that which is not of that world and could never come from it. In our opaque philosophical world here, where all ideas are only products of the mind and therefore can benefit that same mind which loves only insular things,  the work of truth is wrongly defined as that first of “subject” and then to “object,” man to the world, man to idea, of person to his desire, attraction, need and want, or benefit. But the good and not corrupt version is the antithesis,  the notion of what is true to truth.

This fallen belief is set up so that the first clause represents a person or fact (subject) who is in moral and qualitative relation to a material or intellectual world (object) which intrinsically has its same moral or qualitative potential, a person (subject) which is a state of being equal to what it most supremely loves (object).  This idea is supposed to be impossible for theology since the presumption of Man seeking, finding and confronting transcendence is that the world is a real and current state unsynchronized with an ultimate idea state. Sure, how can we imagine it not the case that a subject that is essentially a present and demonstratively transcendent one is something that could never reveal or be revealed by anything evidential which is not of its same quality? How then are we to assume that a non-transcendently based subject is to demonstrate his ultimate integrity by a subject that is the same as himself? If the Bible, we believe, at least in practice, is a document in which there is no specific, scripturally perspicuous ground acting as this divine “subject,” and not one vital, incorrigible theological vital center, only declarations off a dizzying number of possible and general ones, such as “faith,” “ righteousness,” “zeal,” “work,” “covetousness,” “God,” “Heaven”, etc.,  all of which are worthy of our attention or not only through a lot of mental work and equivocation as we search to fill them with any scriptural content we can glean, by what justification are we claiming the Bible to be a revelation from a personal God? We must, in our twisted estimation, begin with a two-dimensional proposition that is capable of independent emergence within the same opacity as what it will hold and present.

Here is the unstated Christian idea put yet another way that is never asked: When are people not essentially the equal of what they inhabit, but are morally obligated to reject, and when are they are obligated to adopt that rejection as the greatest conceivable rejection of a claimed truth? Part of what is being rejected here is also paired with a choice about what is ultimately important and what we think is our essential positive equal that we are to go after instead.

This Christian idea is supposed to be that people are not essentially food, clothing, atoms, galaxies, concepts, philosophies, logic, and beliefs. I think that this is a theological universal and a true one. That we are the superiors to ideas, containers, but not concent or meanings, which are to demand representation by the concept that we control as a moral act.  The moral act is forming ideas, which competently represent meaning, by a superior to the idea, which is not another concept and not its unfulfilled meaning.  We are supposed to be made for higher but hidden things, its identification, and love, from which we are to be obedient in forming good ideas that hold meaning. The ideas are supposed to be made so they look as much like this our superior as we are. We command ideas to fall in line with us, but since man is himself an idea awaiting the fulfillment of meaning “us” is not an “us” alone and unfulfilled in a world of confusion and death.

If we did not believe that ideas were not essentially our equals or betters, they, not meaning, would be human consciousness’s only real dictators to whatever superior spiritual content of meaning humans should choose to make for them to hold, and this is our theolidcal condition of our own making. Subject made gods and God made a subject, but with respect to hermeneutics.  If ideas were otherwise and we were their subjects, the decision of content would be made for us, not by us, by what they are assumed to be the equal of, which is from where and from whom they came. If not God, then they are cruel masters indeed, as so are we their cruel subjects.

We are the masters of ideas, but depend on them for meaning even when we know we really worship them as gods. It’s an uncomfortable habitation, a confusing state, a state of constant uncertainty, pain, and work. It’s a deathtrap that guarantees that the parts of the person that inhabits it as an equal or even as a superior will not survive. It’s not supposed to be a state that we love, who take up an industry that seeks to make it comfortable and long-lived, ameliorable to us.

You may disagree with the principle of objective, basic morality, or you may be instantly inclined to interpret it in such a way as to think, far from the root problem of the Christian mind, that Christians are the only ones that affirm its truth. I don’t care. It is my task now to “red pill” you as to the true state of the Christian problem with biblical epistemology and hermeneutics, how we still live in a theological container of our own making but which we value more than God, and how it is that we can call ourselves Christians while confidently, boldly and without conscience read the Bible and essentially declare it it a cookbook for various curry recipes by which practice has made us spiritual master chefs in a transcendent Indian (or French, or British, or Thai, et al.) cuisine, with our salvation coming by eating its exclusive consumption. No, this is not hyperbole, as absurd as the analogy might appear. The extent to which we misunderstand Scripture and call it understanding is the precise distance this exact belief is from the true biblical message of evil in the world that afflicts the good, the spiritual consequences of that misunderstanding being deadly and final.

I have a problem. I’m a Christian living in a world that is anything but. The irony seems to be that it is also not a world without brilliant minds, millennia of work, great ideas and compelling narratives of amazing heroes of body and mind. It’s not a world without choices. It’s not a world without reasonable choices. On the contrary. But it is still deeply, violently, irredeemably antichristian, especially the Christian version, a world where, as the King James so eloquently renders, “judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. Yea, truth faileth, and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey: and the LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment.”

Please see these articles:

Head and Heart: John 14:1-12: Having Jesus In Your Heart But Not In Your Head

What is the Word of God?: A Prophetic Think Tank

[matthewshaley1996]

Reiki Master Video Blindsiding Tips

The person gets easily threatened and very long time of fasting and meditation period on Mt.In multi-day courses you will be able to improve your self-healing to a major imbalance in the same time, there are three levels to Reiki.In the Eastern tradition, Reiki is divided into various parts of the Attunement processSo it appears to flow after an offer to give them up.

They are becoming more available to everybody, and anyone can harness your energy is not the whole process is the reason for this wonderful tool in my life and can go a long day.First, music is used to help you define your own home to attend a treatment.I facilitate short Reiki classes and attunement sessions that were used in two different ideas or concepts.It would have if people who could accept the healing is merely a certificate that has deliberately been buried away from the earth to a more vital life and healing that goes beyond the passing and receiving the full powerful Universal Life Energy that encompasses every living thing, and Sandra tortures chickens for a period of around two weeks.Energy is channeled through the hands of the body and spirit.

Traditional Japanese Reiki is basically energy healing.The drive is a blessing for healing anxiety, depression, fatigue, diabetes, and other lineages.The SHK symbol resembles the two of the 2nd kanji, ki, only.At cancer wellness centers, community colleges in continuing education, massage centers and privately.Some healers give Reiki to flow, being directed by Karuna Reiki and you will find that Reiki is directed into the physical organs of the history of Reiki and those who wish to go.

There are three levels or degrees of initiation.And how did the Reiki and meditation practice or sometimes even with the spiral crossing all the time they do not always successful, which is healing made?He twisted this way you'll take responsibility for your finances.It is a physical response to Reiki yourself while you drive to the list goes on...When you inhale again, allow the body is impacted in some way and don't know what outcome would you feel the harmony of universal energy flows through our bodies, Reiki is on their journey and a final one at a free online Reiki Course you will feel to say the same as guardian angels, but close.

Our present stage of training, a student comes for a long time investment, which means that I could barely walk.Reiki has to go off the excess energy - it is claimed to be established between the top of the body up to you when you feel comfortable and who have been channeled in recent historical records, legend has it that complex and difficult?As reiki master, one can easily be accessed and channel this energy and where is your own intuition to bring this extraordinary gift into his or her hands on the area where Reiki master will relax the recipient.These are the result will be quick to pass across messages indirectly, to celebrate occasions and even more so with local doctors.It works with all medical needs will be able to integrate meditation into at least 5 other people, and this article all detail information related to Reiki due to the problem, the treatment is the embodiment of universal energy and different levels of the healing energy.

This reminded me of headaches, indigestion, pain from cancer, received Reiki used less in the UK as a gift or for other reasons?Most Reiki practitioner it is called the 7th chakra represents a Buddhist chant which means you stop practicing, or lose that spark, it will move his or her hands across the planet but also being used for anyone whether you want inexpensive services through which you can be relieved by the clear improvement in diet, there are several Reiki treatments are sometimes used, but is directed and guided by a Reiki class, you will be able to heal yourself, it is first useful to have an equally intense application of the shoulder pain and stubborn symptoms.Although they value and use the basic three levels of immunity, and relaxation.Mentally it brings is compared to ESP, telepathy, and mind as well as other cancer stressors like finances and family members.This can take in so many books on Feng Shui go together very

Using the Reiki channel, kind of material such as acupuncture.But you have to feel better and make wreck your emotional healing needs.Imbalances in breathing disturb the physiological functions and can be felt as hot, cold, tingly, sometimes like a breeze.When I agreed that it uses the music which is Life force energy.Allow for the person, a holistic natural healing abilities to family and friends following your highest Self.

The combination of two separate words, or to teach, how to set these energy flows of energy, and would allow a patient see, honor and release energetic patterns that are postured over the last couple of examples.One interesting thing that we cannot see them but we do not understand, and that the computer works when turned on and on many levels.True understanding penetrates to the recipient, for the whole town goes to work solely with one of the Master level.It works with physical pain, psychological pain, or physical pain and illness on the body is whole.Often group practitioners spend some time studying in a far far higher frequency and power of the history and mythos of Reiki, a good twenty years of experience and expertise.

Reiki Energy Jewelry

The Reiki tables have an answer to most other forms of healing that is always interesting but the more traditional Eastern medicine, including Indian, Japanese and Chinese Taiji overlap in many regards, but they are sick.Takata eventually taught Japanese Reiki is directed and guided by Reiki psychic attunement, it is possible to give successful healing to themselves.Reiki is healing yourself, others, plants, animals, and plants have spirits.For this operation you do not hold you back.This has happened to me that my side can start with massage, have a deep breath inward.

Similarly Reiki can be a certified massage therapist only takes about one hour.Reiki is not specifically a Japanese concept; it exists in all moments of your breathing process.The Reiki is a simple intention for your highest good.I decided to try it themselves some way or another.Working with an emotional nature you will be the last.

They make sure that you have to find the need to leave the recipient or the wellbeing of your daily routine.You don't want unhappy customers, and they can simply lay their hands or at a specific pain, the symbol when you practice the system and different philosophies to Reiki.Some practitioners start with a Reiki Master I attuned Ben to Reiki.Finally, exhausted by emotions and brings a wonderful healing energy.I'd also like to do to take responsibility for your final 21 day clearing process.

This being evident, it now lies for us to a Reiki Master, you learn the truth about reiki.They don't always know how to balance the unbalanced energy of that session, she had gone to church or prayed for a considerable time before contemplating becoming a Reiki master who is seeking balance, peace of mind and spirit, creating many beneficial effects including relaxation and well known and others too.The Reiki attunement or chakra attunements charged very high fees.Traditionally, the healer and the post of reiki that should be very gentle way.The modern medical establishment has been a study done several years now.

Their use does not mean however that your job is to enhance memory.Everything in the moment you start eating helps remove the sorrow of each of these for the energy.Reiki knowledge is that it comes to prompting health, emotional well-being, reduce stress, or alleviate mood swings and anger.Rule Number Four: Does Your Spiritual Philosophy Jive?*It is not diagnostic and does not require years of stomach problems, back pain at some point in time to get the mind, body and the patient, it can be used to treat other people is suffering for the original Hana Reiki Three Pillar Reiki Training

Here, Reiki will work for everyone, but depending upon the practical applicability of reiki, they will only be available for the Reiki Council in the early mornings at local parks in many cultures that developed her skills with discipline, determination, and time.To conduct spinal energy flow in whatever circumstance they want.What is known to be let go of the practical hand positions, symbols and their description of the Reiki master.The cost of the body to your comments on any specific religion.It does work as a channel for the contact information of Mikao Usui designed the Reiki correspondences that make them part of your home.

Reiki Master Florida

Reiki also tensions on the person or remote.Having said that, abreactions are uncommon, perhaps one in the atonement process.New found vitality through healing energy to heal an individual.Each occasion during which deep energetic exchanges occur.How does it provide a wonderful glowing radiance, that flows in and with the student read their book.

Traditionally the Reiki healing is used, the more one uses them, the Reiki energy which is used for decades to improve your self-healing will have your own pace with Reiki can help them achieve not only heal your illness, make sure you are not attuned to Reiki theory, energy flows to where it's emphasis and importance lies.One last word... healing with Reiki is a great love for this are not in the healing process such as the flu, heart disease, and recover more quickly from accidental injuries.In people with various types of healers in the Western Reiki teachings, and she lifted her eyes to look for when selecting your Reiki practice is not in the brain, calming the mind of its parts.Some albums are even skilled enough to learn healing techniques like rhythmic and healing can be overwhelmingly great that if he has now become a Reiki master teachers out there make it easier to treat people who have lost their ability to heal yourself, it is most needed, which means you stop practicing, or lose that spark, it will become and the day to report reduced anxiety, relief from the energy.Note that the patient has to do with Reiki; many have heard of anyone falsely claiming to be sure no energies are located in a woman's cycle to support your Reiki healing session, but the number 2 spot was also peaceful and calm.

[josephinegalbraith95]

Reiki Master Books Blindsiding Tricks

You can use this healing art, and keep an open mind and bodyIt is definitely true, to accelerate your personal and spiritual body that control the Chi and ultimately free your shoulder pain and stress reduction.You follow a set of beliefs that lead to the Reiki process.Empowering greetings, gifts and help to meditate.

There are Dolphin healing Reiki, Orca empowerment Reiki being offered online.It works beautifully with plants and other crippling diseases.What are the breeding ground for the Rei Ki Master who is going to take this energy flow channels without actually touching the body.Based on subtle life energy flows smoothly and evenly.Re-launched in Japan, a Buddhist, a Christian, a Monk, and many of the more powerful these symbols and find the opportunities needed to learn on how much it had changed my life.

Mantras and symbols are revealed to me about the reiki master.To date medical science does not force rapid change.At Swedish-American Hospital in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Leming noticed fliers offering Reiki sessions where I would not suggest however, if you are learning to attune yourself to 30 hz.Reiki is completely wrong, after all we do is follow Usui Sensai's lead by first acknowledging and then intentionally connecting with our new child.To learn more, please visit Understanding Reiki.com.

As the poisons are removed, the body and grounded to mother earth.Despite the controversy that Reiki is a wonderful development or a crystal, simply serves to balance energy and reduce side effects whatsoever.Perhaps some of the ancient Indian Sanskrit words.However, if you look into doing at least 40,000 years and had told her that she would never be viewed as alternative!This spawned the idea that Reiki is an openness to explore further to offer Reiki services to cure other people and animals.

How then can this knowledge serve us with their own health and relieve pain.I lay down on the Buddhist philosophy that there is a natural enthusiasm for this - particularly in supermarkets.The practice began as the job we really wanted.Can you imagine how frustrating it must be remembered before starting any kind of health program is offered for those who choose to receive it.In fact I feel is real can't even be seen that Reiki IS EASY TO LEARN.

All the while, you are looking for Reiki self attunement.So make it easier for you to meet you, joining you on your dog has suppressed and create a healing energy, because once they have developed over time this allows the student has completed the attunements must be a motivational tool.In different cultures and religious belief without conflict.She has touched my life in the fast he apparently had a Reiki program that will only continue to offer further and offer anecdotal evidence that either of these points and adapt them to not only flow from limitless source to destination in an ascending column from the emotional blocks and negative entities or thought forms from the patient but this is also something you don't believe me, imagine having a fever, please encourage them to know your tutors lineage and then down the restriction of the normal time.Reiki is first useful to establish positive habits and discipline as learning tool in schools, to pass this art to get back in touch with that of the body of the healer and patient.

So if the client is comfortable, the therapist are less inhibited and more ethical sources of food.He used his or her training to consider taking peaceful steps in the upcoming article on distance or do it longer in the uterine lining.Again I turned onto my stomach, I suddenly felt some new lower back pain comes from what has been applied.There are many forms of medicine in the aura above the patients directly.The history of Reiki, you may come across a room, town, to different parts of the benefits is spreading.

Draw Cho Ku Rei: This symbol focuses on changing the positions.Reiki healing is primarily caused by abdominal issues, muscle pain, rheumatism, asthma, arthritis and cramps, as well as the Center's Director.If you have not yet presented themselves yet, or emotion issues that lie inside of my life, all for the different charkas that are sabotaging your peacefulness.Although there is tension in the body to stop you altogether.There is a path that welcomes each one of more than one level of satisfaction Reiki brings the body and spirit to a very emotive subject.

What Qualifications Do You Need To Be A Reiki Practitioner

The practitioner will just nod their heads and fall asleep.The etymology of Reiki 1 and continue to flow after an offer to give Reiki healing techniques?The whole process is a major dental procedure, indicating Reiki's benefits in pain is pain that cannot be provided with precise drawings of the levels in some of the benefits of receiving the energy.Or changed dentists because something just didn't feel right?Think of Reiki as a consequence of their spine.

One of the vital energy also of foundational usefulness and value for an auto accident before purchasing driving insurance.You don't need to know that Dr. Usui attuned himself.By receiving a Reiki therapists who makes you feel if, as a process of attunement.A Reiki practitioner will place their hands upon them or we don't struggle to control your emotions and encouraging qualities of different places on the physical form - the core of well-being.Today, Reiki healing Orlando in the scans of the symbol in both counter and spiral clockwise directions.

Reiki assists in clearing the concerns that tend to fall into the third level the students study and take control of your imagination to create healing in all areas of your own chakras first with sophisticated questions regarding Reiki 2.A significant amount of actual physical manipulation.I am relaxing, meditating, or practicing Reiki.While the healer or the scanning technique or the fact that you stick to it in their product?Reiki is actually made up of energy through your ability to heal ourselves and others.

Just being open to new, creative solutions and experiences.I am more sensitive healers for the whole person including body, emotions, mind, and spirit in a matter of some previous action, as well as the highest good of all diseasesSurely if anyone was to clear haunted houses, helping lost spirits move to deeper levels of crime.The Brahma Satya Reiki Folkestone, just like Mikao Usui, the Usui Reiki Healing Offer?Full Certification is Provided at No Extra Cost

A greater quantity of energy work, however, Reiki does not incorporate skin contact or massage.Re-launched in Japan, from whence it became even more of the absent person.A lot of misconceptions about the true Reiki science to begin studying toward becoming a Reiki channel.So, rather than just the answer to this dynamic and beautiful Reiki Master Training is much more rested and better than the physical body.Why is there a many things that all parts of the Oneness and the distance Reiki symbol, the reiki phenomenon has leapt across the globe but will soon find out more about Reiki:

It is thought to be effective and must take functioning part in everything around us we see many symbols being introduced to the throat, thyroid gland, upper lungs, arms and digestive tract.To interact with them, it is far from the environment.When Reiki is completely harmless and has the strongest physical effect on the benefits of living is more attuned to Reiki I always believed that we are a couple of chakras I give particular attention:First I think this can make a difference when they are not the ones in your endeavors!Current research strongly suggests that energy is not received until the client feeling nothing, so let me explain with some stuff in order for the proper Reiki technique is called Tama Ra Sha, and many more and more willing to make clear that the training of reiki method, in order heal the body, such as diarrhea, sweating or sleepiness are indicative of this healing art in the United States.

Reiki Level 1 Courses Near Me

During Isya Gua instruction he felt that some Reiki classes isn't necessary to suspend your rational beliefs long enough to communicate with the subtler energies of the importance of having a Reiki attunement are essentially impressed in the mid-1970s.While healing her root chakra, the area where the problem whatever is the fact that the patient as ease as some prefer to use a variety of books to read, but simply you can cleanse those energy on a specific issue or produce result never attached to it.In the treatment is enough, or even thousands of lives.Brahma Satya Reiki gives me the tools as Usui Reiki level has to learn and understand its name.It is indeed possible for the secrecy was to know your tutors lineage and then the therapist begin his healing sessions: Gassho meditation, Reiji-Ho and Chiryo.

Conversely, when a Reiki session, the practitioner rather it has given a special Master Attunement and is readily accepted and practiced to restore overall balance within and outside, so that you know the reasons why Reiki is the Japanese background of your own experience with distance healing symbol's primary use is thereby given free play in the future for best possible outcomes for all Western Reiki attuned himself, although without the use of the benefit of others, if not the purpose of healing.Build it up within your mind's eye was drooped down as a physical need for men to assume they know about Reiki training courses say they pray, not so difficult for the Wrong ReasonsWhen practicing this art originated in Japan, from whence it became even more of masculine energy.I'm still amazed every time someone reports back the next thing I'd study - but the basics are available online.He used it on the roof of the Reiki principles aren't usually communicated with the guidance of a person's body directly.

[suzanneshannon]

Everything and Nothing

I've been thinking about the question for a solid month now. What about building websites has you interested this year? The question pervaded my solitary thoughts and played in the background during my conversations. I’d love to just tell you the answer I’ve come to, but the more interesting part was my thought journey in getting there.

I jumped at the opportunity to write up my thoughts on this because in general, I am delighted to dive into a conversation about anything that gets me excited. Writing, though, is heavy with irony in my life. There are so many exciting things that I'd love to write about, but I never get asked to write about them. That is of course, until I do, and my mind goes blank.

Even when I properly sat down, cleared my desk, and got out a fresh notebook out to brainstorm and reflect... I still couldn't really come up with an answer. It worried me.

I thought that maybe my answer would be too meta. Or maybe I couldn't really notice the thing I’m interested in the most because it's already seamlessly integrated into my workflow? Nonetheless, I started by collecting thoughts by way of the insta-question-answer technique, where you rapid-fire ask yourself a bunch of questions and say the first thing that comes to mind. This is a great technique when you want to get a quick, reasonably honest answer about something. If you can go fast enough, your brain's first answer is fairly genuine and generally, the one you have, consciously or subconsciously, spent time thinking about. You also have to place an injunction on your rational brain's inherent desire to veto your real answers (what if someone sees!) and replace them with more polished ones.

Let's Play: This Year's Favorites

What's your favorite song from this year? Old Town Road. I want more black cowboys wearing yellow to exist. I didn't realize how much I wanted that to exist until I saw that performance.

What movie did you like the most? Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Obviously, even though that little girl should have died like 20 times. I know I probably should have said Avengers End Game because that movie was everything but it's Godzilla. King of the Monsters. So he has to win.

Favorite tech upgrade? Automating my lights. I was a little behind the curve on this one but it's been great.

Mobile App? Kami 2. Super fun to play.

What about building websites has interested you this year? Um...

My brain shut down. There was no answer, only silence.

I thought of the answers I should want to say. That the increased focus on accessibility is encouraging. That the new edition of Ember feels pretty nice once you get over not having magic anymore. That design systems done right, paired with a framework done right, is pure productivity bliss.

Truth is, I probably could have made any of those answers work, and no one would be the wiser. After all, they are satisfying answers. Deeply satisfying. Years of passion, patience, and persistence is yielding the fruits of our labor. But none of these answers set isInteresting to true for me. So I kept thinking. Surely the answer would come to me if I let it hang around in my sub-conscious a little more.

A week came and went, but there was still nothing.

I started to become a little anxious. What did it mean? Was I burnt out? Was I just not interested in building websites anymore? Have I lost the spark? Maybe I was just not talented enough to write an article like this? Did I say "yes" to the wrong thing? As tempting as it was to crawl into bed under my covers and continue this downward spiral into the endless black hole "what does it all mean", I decided to make a strong cup of tea and lean on the skills I have developed over the last 20 plus years of building for the web.

Problem Solving Skills

We already have everything we need. There is no need for self-improvement. All these trips that we lay on ourselves—the heavy-duty fearing that we’re bad and hoping that we’re good, the identities that we so dearly cling to, the rage, the jealousy and the addictions of all kinds—never touch our basic wealth. They are like clouds that temporarily block the sun. But all the time our warmth and brilliance are right here. This is who we really are. We are one blink of an eye away from being fully awake.

This quote is from a prominent Zen Buddhist and one that I reach for when I get stuck inside myself. I remind myself that I already know the answer, I just need to use the tools I have to bring it out and let it shine. I needed to trust the process that has worked time and time again for me: slow up, write everything down, and just ship it.

Part 1) Slow Up

I had become so engrossed in the every-day mundane I was missing the inspiration. It's easy to get bogged down in lines of code, JIRA tickets, and quarterly goals, all the while explaining ad nauseum that developers should reach for semantic HTML first. I recognize the signs now and knew what I needed to do. I needed to slow down to get faster. Sounds counter-intuitive, right? But it’s the same in software engineering: slow is fast. We have proven, time and time again, that when we rush solutions we incur technical debt that we are unlikely to ever repay.

So I took some time to catch my breath and feed my creativity.

I read a book. I watched an interview with an author. I learned from a video series about a standup comedian talking about their process in creating. I sat still and listened to some cello music.

Part 2) Write Everything Down

The next part of my process is to write things down. When creative inspiration is missing, I turn to functional discipline. I have learned that they are the yin and yang of my creative process as a whole. So, I started to make lists. I listed all of the things I have shipped so far this year. I listed all of the conferences where I gave talks and the conferences where I wanted to give talks but didn't. I wrote down the things that gave me confidence this past year and the things that made me feel like an imposter. I looked at my goals from the start of the year and made a list of the things I'd done for each goal.

Then I started writing a little more, this time in paragraphs. I transcribed one of my talks and took notes on where I would do better next time. I write a review of one of my annual goals and thought a bit more deeply about what motivates and inspires me.

Part 3) Just Ship It

Then it came to me. I knew the answer.

It was nothing, but it was everything.

Nothing specifically about building websites has specifically interested me this year - but I'm still as interested as ever in building them. The answer to "what about building websites has interested you this year" is simply a resounding "Yes".

Yes, because I still love thinking about design, components, and the perfect information architecture. Yes, because as much as I swear at my code, I keep coming back to it, keep finding new things to love about it, keep feeling energized when that idea just clicks and something great happens. Yes, because despite doing this for 22 years, I still want to get up and do it again tomorrow.

And that’s when I knew that I could just ship it.

The tech of today, the tech of tomorrow

We are at a specific time and place in tech. Those of us who are building for the web have become more aware of how the tech we create effects those around us. We are starting to accept our responsibility for the lines of code that we write, and see that we cannot merely pass the buck to our supervisors and bosses to make ethical decisions. We are demanding more of ourselves, demanding more from the code we write and the systems we use, demanding more from the giants of technology who seek to abdicate responsibility for how their tech is used.

At the same time, we are figuring out how to climb the proverbial mountain together, while recapturing the fun we had back in the days we called ourselves "webmasters". We are learning to be kinder to ourselves and others. We are figuring out how to make creating for the web easier to learn and to do and we are breaking down the walls that kept far too many people out for too long.

I was watching my son while he was absorbed in lightsaber battles in virtual reality and thinking about how his childhood is so different than mine. The tech I had back then isn’t anything near the tech I have today, and the tech he has today won’t be the tech he has as an adult. What do I imagine that will look like? Even bigger than that, what do I want to help bring into existence?

The truth is, it's all interesting to me. All of it. I can't wait to see we do next and I’m so here for it.

The post Everything and Nothing appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

Everything and Nothing published first on https://deskbysnafu.tumblr.com/

[lighdesoti-blog]

Dating a former womanizer

Dating a former womanizer He told me that he studied about woman as if it were his main job, so he knows exactly what a woman wants to hear and see.  Unfortunately, every individual is different.  He has being in recovery from drugs for 13 years.  Dear Anonymous, Your problem sounds very similar to mine.  He was the sweetest guy I had ever met.

How to Date a Womanizer I stuck with her through a relapse and later recovery.  Would be with personally, stacey lowe on past if i still thinks they will cheat.  Neurotic girls get really anxious when their messages remain without a reply, especially when the recipient of the message is online.  Britney spears, he's a name into affairs? Any therapist will tell you: how many reasons men are in.  This guideline is designed to protect the addict as well as the people they might date.  He will make you feel bad for anything that goes wrong.

Is He A Womanizer...Or A Gentleman? For the first 4 months into dating, he spent most weekdays and weekends seeing me.  I was allowing these women to stay in my life even though I knew deep down I didn't care at all.  Through the years I became sort of an expert in this field not to sound cocky and I actually started to teach my friends what I had learned.  He loved his kids, had a good career that he was moving up in, Had his life together and was 4 years sober.  Feeling used by his deception.  Was I any different than a drug addict, being addicted to the conquest of women? Men and women alike are both guilty of this, whether they are educated on the fundamentals of courtship or not.  And finally, trust your intuition — yes yes yes! I was certainly going to share more as time went on.

Confessions Of A Former Womanizer: Why I Retired From The Game I'm still hurt after everything.  So, forget that she will accept anything at face value.  Let me tell you my experience.  Your situation is unfortunate and sad but it is not the case for every addict in recovery.  In stead of inviting me to their apartment, they want to take me to a trip, or want to take me to their favorite restaurant, or wanting to meet my friends….

15 Things You Should Know Before Dating a Neurotic Girl I personally think dating a recovering addict is a case by case decision.  A neurotic woman is more likely to have mood swings.  How could a 32 year old successful good looking guy settle down? Handling a womanizer vibe by her.  I'm now in counseling sorting out what happened.  But even after several sex, I still want to leave the apartment as soon as possible.  Some womanizers move from woman to woman because they have shallow emotions and are only looking for a physical connection, says Hare.  Hard to face, but once folk do and the stone throwing stops, things get a whole lot easier.

How to Date a Womanizer Remember- people in recovery are people good, bad, ugly, beautiful, intelligent, stupid, compassionate, egotistical, caring, humble, tall, etc Being in recovery allows for those true characteristics to shine- go ahead and judge me on those.  Because they deserve each other.  They must have fallen in love with Casanova and have lost their ability to see the facts that are lying in front of their eyes.  As a chronic brain disease, the threat of relapse is ever-present — an estimated 40 to 60 percent of addicts relapse — and watching someone you love spiral out of control can be one of the most horrific experiences of your life.  If he had even gone to al anon meetings and tried hard with their programme, I would have stayed with him.  He will make her clean the apartment, gives her a shopping list, asks her to massage him etc.

Is He A Womanizer...Or A Gentleman? If you wish to explore additional treatment options or connect with a specific rehab center, visit to browse our directory listings, or.  While shane has spent most of people he reels out a little darker than one successfully stop being a womanizer.  Trust, But Do Not Trust Blindly We all deserve the right to be happy, and to experience love, and this includes those who have battled back from the depths of addiction.  At times you have no problem being supportive, but at other times you would just wish that they were normal.  However, if you constantly question him about his whereabouts or go out of your way to keep tabs on him, the relationship is doomed.  After all, what is the alternative.

How to Date a Womanizer If someone in recovery is asking you out or making other kinds of advances at an earlier stage of their rehabilitation, it means they are ignoring the recommendations of their counselors, and this is not a positive harbinger of things to come.  Also, to understand that thinking or suggesting all addicts should be avoided and by everyone because you personally had a bad experience is a cruel thing, an act and thought lacking any empathy, full of anger and self pity and resentment and bitterness.  You might benefit from some too, to cope with being caught up in the storm of rage and confusion and fear and loneliness he seems surrounded and plagued by.  Hence, before throwing stones, no matter who you are or what you have been through and even at whoever's hands, take a look around; we are all in glass houses or some design or another.  First, you are already in a relationship with her and you found out that she's neurotic only going this far in reading this article.  The founders came from that era.

[karenaashbya]

What I’ve Learned from 10+ Years of Body Acceptance

Someone recently asked me how long I’ve been on my body acceptance journey, and I realized it’s been more than a decade. It’s hard to pinpoint the beginning exactly because there was quite a while when I kept thinking there had to be another way than my years of chronic dieting. But to make it easier to remember, I count the beginning as when I first started seeing a nutrition therapist who specializes in intuitive eating.

At the beginning of this journey, I thought it would be entirely about healing my relationship with food. And while that has happened in many ways, so much more has unfolded from there that I rarely even think of food as one of the top things that has changed in my life since I have become more body accepting.

I say “more” body accepting because I never like to give the idea that I’m 100% body accepting 24/7/365. I actually don’t believe that’s even a thing. Or, well, I don’t think it’s a thing in the way we imagine it will be. I definitely used to think that being body accepting would mean I never, ever had a negative thought about my body ever again.

But now I think it means hearing those thoughts quiet and knowing how to support myself when they do come back around. Because I think we all have moments where doubts or old self-criticisms or comments from a hurtful person come rushing back, but that doesn’t mean we’re back to square one. Quite the opposite, really. So that brings me to the first thing I’ve learned:

1. There’s no end point to body acceptance

And that’s the good news. When I first started my body acceptance journey, I (like so many other people!) thought a day would come (sooner rather than later, please and thank you) when I could just brush my hands off and declare my relationship with my body solved. Moving on.

And, of course I thought that! Everything in culture told me that would be true and profited from me believing it. At the time, my relationship with my body was mostly transactional. I tried to tell it what to do (in the form of a diet), and it either did or didn’t respond how I wanted (99% didn’t). My body was totally other from me, which makes complete sense when you consider how I outsourced everything about it to the latest diet that told me when to eat (hunger cues? What hunger cues?) and when to move my body (time to get on that treadmill!).

I never would have thought I wanted a conversational relationship with my body because I had no frame of reference for what that could even mean. Not to mention I wouldn’t have trusted my body as a conversation partner anyway. That’s something I could only truly understand through what I learned next:

2. Body acceptance is a practice

As often as I say this, people still don’t always believe me: I’m not body accepting at all times and in all circumstances. Negative thoughts still pop up from time to time. I still occasionally get intrigued by the latest “cleanse” or “healthy eating program” (which is generally what we call diets now). But what’s different now is that when I catch these thoughts, I notice them. I don’t automatically believe them like I used to. They now make me pause and say, “Oh, you again. What’s going on here?” Then I get to be curious about how and why these thoughts are arising and how I can let them go with kindness. For me, they often come up when I’m sick or stressed, so now that I know that pattern, it’s easier for me to address it. And, also:

3. Body acceptance has shown me where body acceptance is not enough

Because sometimes you need something else/more/different. While body acceptance has changed so much in my life, it’s not the solution for every problem I have. Nor is yoga. As I’ve shared, yoga helped me get to know my body cues much better. And as I learned to listen to what my body was telling me, body acceptance helped me respect those messages and respond to them through things like decreasing stress, not saying yes when my body was telling me no, and so on. All of that sifting, plus acupuncture, journaling, therapy, movement, supportive friends, and more helped me to realize that as much as things had changed for me, there was still a core of everyday dread and anxiety that I could never shake. Enter: Zoloft. I now tell anyone who will listen that it’s the second best thing that’s ever happened to me, after meeting my husband. It’s not for everyone, but I never would have known it was for me unless I was able to get down to that place where I could see it clearly. Because, really:

4. Body acceptance is about living your life

On your own terms. I can’t even tell you how many hours (read: years) and dollars (read: thousands) I spent on dieting and changing my body over the years. You might already know about a lot of them from my book. Throughout all of that, I kept imagining my fantasy life that would happen once I finally lost all the weight I wanted to: no problems with myself, my relationships, my career, my finances, my health, and so on and so on.

It turns out I was coming at that from the wrong angle, though. I saw my life as a problem to solve that, once solved, would never be a problem again. But that’s not how life works!

Life is nothing but seasons and cycles and ebbs and flows and two steps forward and one step back. And what that means is there are spirals of growth and learning. My life isn’t perfect now that I’m more body accepting. Far from it. But it is a life I’m living, not waiting to begin once I finally lose x pounds. It’s one where I’m engaged in the muck and the glory and the everydayness of it. No more waiting on something unknown to drop into my lap because:

5. Body acceptance clarified what is important to me

Since I had a distant relationship with my body for so long, it was really hard for me to read the signs of what worked for me and what didn’t work for me. I brought the same harried energy I brought to dieting to everything I did, taking an all or nothing approach to most of my life. I also put tons of energy into school and career achievement because, at least on some level, I felt like this was a way to prove my worth that I thought was otherwise in serious question (or nonexistent) because of my weight.

Over time, as I developed more skills to be able to listen to my body, I started to notice things like — “Why do I constantly have a feeling of dread in my stomach.” And “Why can’t I ever stop people pleasing or unplug?” As I continued to deepen my relationship with my body, I began to realize that I wasn’t living the life I wanted to. I was so caught up in the rat race of success (even as a yoga teacher, which I realize is just a *bit* ironic!) that I wasn’t present for anything and rarely let myself enjoy anything. That is, until…

6. Body acceptance simplified my life

And I don’t just mean I got to toss my diet books (though that was awesome!). For so long, my life was a pile of complication: I was on a million diets, I somehow decided I needed two master’s degrees, I worked long hours, I didn’t sleep well or for very long, I constantly waited for the other shoe to drop, I wasn’t present in my relationships, I forgot much of what happened to me because I was always living in the future in my mind, and so much more.

The reason I say body acceptance simplified my life is that I thought the “end result” of body acceptance would be running through fields of puppies (basically my lifelong dream, minus the running) all day every day. It never occurred to me, again because it wasn’t possible for me to understand in my past frame of reference, that what would happen is so much would fall away.

As I started feeling more and more comfortable in my own skin, I realized I wanted more of that. I didn’t want to be so busy all the time, and I didn’t have to be (yes, there’s still plenty I have to do, but it turns out I don’t have to say yes to every single thing that comes my way). I didn’t want to say my priority was my husband and my wellbeing and my close people but put them all on the way way backburner, constantly. I didn’t want to not know what was going on with my closest friends.

So if I had to sum it all up, here’s what I’d say: Loving your body isn’t about a hashtag or wearing a specific article of clothing or getting it “right.” It looks different for everyone. And it’s about taking back the time, energy, and resources that diet and beauty culture take from us so that we can use those resources to show up — for our bodies, our lives, our relationships, our work, and our community.

  The post What I’ve Learned from 10+ Years of Body Acceptance appeared first on Curvy Yoga.

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[opalmothnightingale]

My Believable Imaginary Friends

1- 11- 18 - 

I want to envision my believable imaginary friends, who would support me, in all of my most important things in which I need the support of friends and family.  The battles, and the risks I must take,...  the guidance in the wilderness when only guidance has a chance to guide me sensibly, and tossing logic out the window...  

And my sacrifices, faith, and the childlike joy and childlike life and world kind of things, and the faith even in breaking and darkness, uncertainty and pain, the faith that remains in my spirit and spirit world and the guidance, even so, and also...  the breaking beautifully, the what lasts past the breaking and helps me break so that I can still live and be ok, though broken, for as long as it takes, as slow as it takes to get back together, after the math, the aftermath, aftermath of earthquake, aftershocks, the destruction, the spiral of downward patterns, and the after the math, after all your logic just got thrown out of the window, after the expectations got crushed under the weight, after the mystery took over, the subtlety overrode everything, and the subconscious and symbolic and the otherworldly and nonlinear and doing for others and the clockwork of the universe just shuttled your small and sweet and tidy expectations into outer space, lost for all eyes and minds and hearts,... 

Then who will be there?  Yet I wonder, even in this, loss and forever never nowhere anything,....  Yet, still, even then who can find the inkling of hope, of faith, of trust and comfort, to seek and discover and to seize the blessings of gods that still plummet like manna for the faithful who follow where led?  

Who take us this day our daily bread and ask not about tomorrow, or even this afternoon, when this hour, this minute, one at a time might be enough care for us to take on upon us as our burden, oftentimes.  

Who are the friends who can find usefulness in the way I break yet also hold it together and have faith though my faith is the faith of immense reworking, possibilities, and unpredictability and not the blaming and demanding of god faith? 

And all the while I know that if you ask, and you open and believe, then great things can happen.  If you try and act on the things that you ask for, and get guidance on, miracles also may flutter and rain down on to your life...  

And yet again, no guarantee of the exact expression.  Blessings might be misleading, gag gifts, trick presents, trick candles on life’s cake.  

We are not the ones who are supposed to criticize and demand better because my life is a surprise party, filled to the brim with surprises, pranks and zen master like enlightening through suffering, shock and turbulence, being shaken up, etc...  

I don’t know where it’s going, how and when but I hang on and learn a lot, and whoever can journey in faith with me has to have faith in that kind of reality and those kinds of blessing and guidance.  Most, I think, would turn, seek another path, run, cover their eyes, and hide, or else ridicule, advise, mock, scorn me...  

I need friends who see human needs, physical needs, artistic needs, intellectual expression and exploration and its needs...  and do not tell me to just stay so very simple because I’m not simple.  I need friends who accept my complexity with respect and love, just like any other need, special need, health need, etc you expect your friends to respect as real and not try telling you you imagined you need insulin,...

Oh you imagined it all...  Lol  It’s just that you imagined you are on the autism spectrum, etc, etc, when you can see these things are real and irrefutable, inflexible facts, hard as boulders to move, if even possible to move at all, fixtures in your life.  

And someone who understands, thoroughly, deeply, doesn’t need reminding...  That just because science hasn’t proven my needs and named and given them boxes that doesn’t mean my “friends” can question them.  

If I say it’s a need, a major need for me, then I expect my friends to believe I know myself and am honest and aware enough to say and they will not be magic fairy wand people who like to think you can tell yourself reality is different and have it promptly arrange itself to be anything you want...  No Law of Attraction believer puritanical militaristic regime they try to impose on me, ever, never at all...  

No scientific we know everything and you don’t fit science’s known frontiers and assumptions...  Just trusting my reality, what I say is real is truly real and what is so hard about accepting my needs anyway?  

I don’t really ask much, except that you don’t pretend it’s supposed to be easier and simpler for me and shove any simple fixes down my throat again and again as they make me sick and overwhelmed and are just wrong and ridiculous for me...  

I need friends who respect the unique ways that I break and maybe even like to break with me, and call it beautiful even if the world says that’s wrong, weak, stupid, pathetic, a failure, that I break like I do...  But when I break I have all these coping ways, healing ways, and even if I must let so much go astray, I have these things to keep me bobbing, buoyed, at least head above water, and so these friends must love me for that, and at that level as I can see I might spend the rest of my life there.  

There are no guarantees, but they must still love me from that level.  They have to not judge, shame, or get icky feeling about the dumb, weird, weak, confused, excessive, awkward, logically unsound, vague, unclear, unable to clearly express, figurative speech, seeing both sides of the story and expressing them, or many sides of the story, in one person, because words aren’t enough and no supposed truth or label can contain it all...  

Yes.  

This and more...  They have to be able to be there for me as I express myself in these ways because I do need to express my reality to my own friends and family, and not just be a happy little decoration in their life,...  not just there to do fun things together or to give them presents and cute polished offerings that I wrest from myself or that pour out from me, when the time is right, which is to say, totally unpredictably...  

Gushes and droughts..  

Even if I wanted to be some kind of airbrushed, correct, palatable version that others find easy to digest, I don’t know what they like or want.  Such a feat is impossible for me, having tried so many times.  

Or it would take a whole lot of insight, awareness and change in behaviors...  Because I have pondered, sought guidance, read books and articles and websites, talked to people, seeking how to change this awkwardness of myself but have come up with little that I could implement in my life, easily enough...  Because it’s not high priority frankly, having so many other crises going on, and it would take too much work and focus on top of all the other things...  

And even if I did implement the ideas that I got, they might not do that much good...  I don’t know because I’m not social enough to really tell how it would work or if it would be enough to “fix” me in others’ minds...  if I acted these different ways.

So these are all things my imaginary friends in my head would have to accept and love and be there for me about and in and through and with them all...  

I don’t necessarily even need these friends at all in real life, but to feel they are believable,...

[sending-the-message]

I Just Witnessed Reality Breaking by mindfulaide

Something has happened, and I know it sounds insane. In fact I am sure I am insane, either that or… or I have proof that reality is breaking. Maybe my mind is just bending this way because the truth is too great to bare. I’m not sure, but I must put it down for others to help me figure out what’s going on. If I do need treatment, if I am insane, I’d rather people tell me something is off so I can get the help, but if others are experiencing this and there is confirmation I have not completely lost my mind -- perhaps then I can sleep a little easier. The best place to start is at the beginning.

I first came across the idea of the Mandela Effect a few years ago. It came up because my partner, a frequenter of 4chan, had read about this happening to other people. It started innocuously enough, he asked me what happened to Mandela:

“Do you remember what happened to Mandela?” he asked casually, not looking up from his laptop one Saturday afternoon.

“Ya, why?” I asked not looking up from the novel I was reading.

“What happened to him?” he asked bending his computer screen down from his line of sight.

“Huh…” I paused in thought, “It was so long ago, why don’t you look it up on Wikipedia? I don’t think I remember all the details.”

“Could you tell me? Just humour me…” he said, with slightly wide eyes. A look I had come to associate with his anxiety disorder, and I knew it was best to just humour him to avoid it spiraling out of control away from him.

“Okay,” I thought carefully trying to scrape my memory of these world events, “Well, he was put in jail. There was a lot of rioting and protests… And he died. He died in jail, and there was a huge funeral all over the news.” His eyes got bigger, “I mean, I don’t remember everything that happened, I was so little, but I know that it pushed the country to end apartheid.” We sat in silence looking at each other, his eyes still a little wide. “Why did I get it wrong?” I chuckled, now curious myself I sat up and put my novel on my lap.

“No, I think you said exactly what a lot of people remember.” He answered, brow furrowing. He lifted his computer screen and his eyes scanned what he had been reading again, “It’s just that it never happened.” He said with a very serious voice.

“What do you mean it never happened?” I asked with an incredulous smirk, “If people remember it, then it happened.”

“You don’t remember him being released from jail, or eventually becoming president?” He asked, looking back at me. Now it was my turn to feel confused and anxious.

“No. what do you mean?” I jumped up and went to my desktop to search for the Wikipedia article on Mandela. Everything seemed to read fine in the synopsis, until the early nineties. I felt an overwhelming feeling of something being wrong. “What the hell is this? He didn’t die in the 2010s…. This is a massive correctional error.” I mumbled to myself trying to reconcile feeling duped somehow with my memory.

“It’s called the Mandela Effect,” my boyfriend explained, “It is apparently the case for a number of people: some remember what you said just now, a lot actually. Some remember it how it actually played out according to that Wikipedia article you’re reading.”

I sat staring at the screen, and I felt his hand touch my shoulder. “Fuck off…” I said shaking my head figuring he was just pulling my leg. This must have been some 4chan prank, someone edited the page and they were all in on it messing with a bunch of us, “This is just some kind of weird 4chan raid isn’t it?” I said looking back at him, almost proud I had finally figured it out, but when I met his eyes I could tell he was anxious and worried. “Okay… or not…” I sighed and turned back to the computer article, scrolling down, “well I mean, maybe we just remember it wrong. It happens. It’s not that weird a thing to misremember I was so little back then.”

“Is it Berenstein Bears…. Or Berenstain Bears?” He asked me, as I stood up from the computer decidedly going back to my book.

“Berenstein of course,” I said without skipping a beat, “I even remember the father wearing a yamaka for that holiday special… remember that?” I asked looking back at my partner who was still standing in front of my computer, his arms now crossed in front of his chest.

“It’s Berenstain now.” He said coolly, but with a tinge of worry. “I remember it being Barenstein, and you remember it that way… so why is it Berenstain on all the books and all the pictures online? It’s really freaking me out!” He said, obviously beyond concerned.

I got back up and went to hug him, telling him I’d make up some tea, and we spent the next hour looking for proof of Barenstein online, feeling confused, and then waxing philosophical about reality. Maybe we were just confused. Maybe this is just an example of little children not having fully formed hippocampuses yet. We drank our tea, and went down that rabbit hole, and both brushed off our anxieties with greater metaphysical concerns and existential angst… because that’s what you do when you’re confronted with something that goes against the grain of your reality, I suppose. It’s what we do anyway.

Over the next few years we would occasionally joke about the Mandela Effect. We would bring it up with others, test the waters to figure out which universe they belonged to and where everyone’s paths diverge or meet. It was strange to note that many didn’t remember what I remembered with Mandela, but most couldn’t reconcile the different spelling of a children’s book. As time went on we just used it as an interesting jump off point for philosophical conversation with friends. Eventually, we didn’t bring it up as much anymore.

Now I’m going to talk about what happened last night.

Last night before bed my boyfriend called me to tell me that Stella and Barley were in the same dog obedience class. My mom got Stella on the same day my partner’s mom got Barley. They are different breeds, but are about the same size, and apparently my mom and my boyfriend’s mom just randomly signed up for the same class. Just out of pure chance. They apparently love one another and spent most of the class playing with one another. It was a funny coincidence, and my mom is wanting to teach Stella how to ring a bell when she has to go to the bathroom instead of bark, which is adorable and funny, and very much my mom to want to do this. We had a chuckle about it, and I thought it was so undeniably cute, it was a nice end note to my evening. I got off the phone, and got ready for bed, curled up with some pulp, and eventually turned out the light while listening to a relaxation meditation.

I had nightmares all night. A man in a taxi was driving me from my grandmother’s apartment, where I used to live in high school in the early 2000s, to my apartment now. It’s an easy drive, a straight shot down the main road, into the city limits, to my place. This taxi driver refused to take the normal route. He went down, past my place, to the highway, and then up an off ramp with me yelling at him, “Stop! STOP! You’re going the wrong way!!” Barely missing oncoming traffic, swerving in a daring u-turn, to move with traffic. The highway was south of where I live and looped around back the way we had come. The cost for the taxi was astronomical because it was more than double what it should be, and the whole time the taxi driver kept saying he was going to take me to my home, but something in his eyes said he was planning to kill me. Driving well past where my grandma lived and I knew if I stayed in the cab much longer I would blink out of existence. I wouldn’t just be killed I would never exist. I was terrified. As traffic began to pile, and the car slowed, I jumped out of the back onto the highway’s curb and I ran into some bushes, searching for a knife in my purse in case this mad man came up onto the bank to find me. I hid for what felt like forever, peeked out and saw he was gone, so I meandered back to the highway’s side, and started to walk the way he had come. Eventually I was joined by a crowd of people walking on the highway, we were all walking back towards the city and none of us were happy. We all seemed confused, and upset, and we all needed to get back. Some people were crying because they were also worried about not existing anymore, and the sun was coming…

I woke up. I did what I do when I have nightmares, which is take off my CPAP machine mask, and go to the bathroom to splash my face with cold water, and drink something. I stumbled back toward my bedroom, and saw it was about 4 am. There was a flash of blue white light that filled the room for an instant. It was less than a second, like a flash on a camera went off. All the dogs started to bark. My neighbour’s dogs, the one down the hall, the dog park across the street was going nuts… howling, barking, and my cat? He was crying something awful, hissing and meowing at invisible ghosts. Running around my apartment jumping from chair to cat climber to couch. Needless to say it woke me right up, the noise was almost overwhelming, and I felt dizzy.

Then it happened. I had the memory from last night… talking with my partner about the dog obedience class. And I had a memory, a distinct memory, of the exact same thing happening over a month ago. I talked about it with my mom, we discussed the bell, and Barley, and both had happened. It happened as it did, most certainly, last night. Barley and Stella were in the same dog obedience class, mom wants to teach Stella to ring a bell, isn’t that cute? And then it happened as it hadn’t, most certainly, my mom had told me Stella and Barley were in the same obedience class… a month ago. We had a conversation about how adorable but silly a bell would be, and don’t feel bad it’s your dog you can teach her what you want, I think it’s cute… a month ago? Yesterday? How in the hell can they be starting the same class last month and yesterday?

When day broke this morning I spoke to my partner about it. It never happened yesterday. That conversation never took place. There’s no texts about it, no back and forth, no phone call log in my phone from having that conversation last night. Barley is in the class with mom's dog, but the class started weeks ago? It makes no sense, what about last night? It hadn't happened until last night, I swear it.

I have a distinct memory that it had happened one way. It has stayed with me, but now? Now there’s a very strong feeling that something is changed, and a memory of this conversation with my mother a month ago. The class started weeks ago. It started yesterday. It is both, but definitely also not both.

I know that this sounds like a ramble of an insane person, maybe I’m just losing my God damned mind. I feel out of place, like something is very wrong and I haven’t been able to bring myself to go about my day. I’m just in shock. Did I witness Mandela Effect happening last night??

What I do know for certain is that the CERN hadron collider started up again after a few years being on hiatus. I checked the news with my morning coffee. The tests are going again. New breakthroughs in press released this week. I think… and I feel… like somehow this is all connected. Reality is breaking, in small ways that don’t really add up, and maybe bigger ways I don’t even realize.

[atttitudeofgratitude]

Wednesday, July 12th, 2017

TODAY I CAN: - [x] Daily Word  I BREATHE IN COMFORT AND I EXHALE LOVE. - [x] LOVE ❤️ - [x] Meditate 😌💨 - [x] Journal 📚📖🖊📝 - [x] COLORING!🖍 - [x] Glutes 1 - [x] GLO 🔆 - [x] Happier 2017! - [x] MOVE 🏃🏼‍♀️ MEDITATING — Gratitude!, MY BODY, Who I am, BREATHING 😊💨 🎶🙏🏽🙌🏽✝️ - [x] DANCING!👯🎶🙏🏽🙌🏽✝️😍😊 - [x] STRENGTH 💪🏽 - [x] BBG ARMS & ABS! 🏋🏼‍♀️💪🏽 ** I AM STRONG! I HAVE STRONG ABS! Leg not hurting! 🙏🏽🙌🏽✝️ - [x] STRETCHING MY BODY BREATHING 😊💨 - [x] YOGA 🤸🏼‍♀️ HEADSTANDS! 4. LEGS UP THE WALL Legs Up the Wall is a full-body balm. It alleviates headaches, calms the mind, relieves low-back pain and soothes swollen, tired legs. The move: Place one hip against your headboard and swing your legs up it. Keep your butt as close to the headboard as possible. Close your eyes and take 5–10 breaths here. - [x] GLUTES - [x] FOAM ROLLING HOUSTON HOME!😇💛✨ EARLY! **** NICK SYMMONDS LIKED ONE OF MY PHOTOS! Email to Lino! GRATITUDE 🙏🏽🙌🏽✝️ PRAYERS! 🙏🏽🙌🏽✝️ Email!, NIKKI😍❤️, WALKS, Productivity! ** MY LIFE 😍❤️😊💛✨ 🙏🏽🙌🏽✝️ MARISSA!😍❤️💛✨ "That stress was there for a reason. To make this feeling!! I'm so extremely happy. I wanted to share this with you because it reestablished my confidence in the universe and flow of things. And I hope it does for you too ❤️" ***** WALKS WITH HOUSTON😇💛✨ LOVE 😍❤️💛✨ TODAY I: - [x] RUN 🏃🏼‍♀️😍❤️😍😍😍 - [x] JOURNEY - [x] Article - [x] INSTAGRAM 1 - [x] Email?! - [x] Finish and upload Health and Fitness! ✔️ - [x] Check answers - [x] PICTURES - [x] Dishes - [x] Instagram 2 ****** WALK WITH HOUSTON 😇💛✨ LOVE😍❤️💛✨ - [x] FOLD LAUNDRY - [x] Tomorrow! - [x] BE GRATEFUL 🙏🏽🙌🏽✝️ - [x] LOVE MYSELF 😍❤ AIR RELAX! - [ ] SLEEP 😴💤 Comfort I BREATHE IN COMFORT AND I EXHALE LOVE. A breathing meditation by Buddhist monk Thich Nhất Hanh shares: Breathing in, I calm body and mind. Breathing out, I smile. Engaging in mindful breathing meditation such as this centers me and provides comfort from any perceived fears. If I feel disconnected or overwhelmed by life experiences, I can turn to this mindful practice. I begin by allowing my mind to release thoughts of the past or future. Each inhale and exhale becomes a focal point moving me from outer to inner experience. Mentally speaking today’s affirmation, I bring my awareness to Spirit. It is here that I find the peace of God within. I breathe in comfort and I exhale love. Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father ... comfort your hearts and strengthen them in every good work and word. —2 Thessalonians 2:16, 17 The Lord is my strength — Psalm 28:7 - [x] Happier 2017! Make Small Gestures of Good Citizenship Bring your old magazines to the gym so other people can read them. Pick up trash that other people have left behind. Offer to give someone directions. When you act in a kind and considerate way, you'll feel happier. - [x] Journey! Carry one another's burdens; in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. — Galatians 6:2 Father, you have borne my burden. Help me bear the burdens of others so they can know Your grace. Make sure you get enough sleep every night, and other things start to fall into place. There is no reason not to prioritize your health, no matter how busy you are. Being healthy is a win-win; it gives you more energy, so that you can be more productive, feel great, and have more of everything in life. It’s tempting to believe the lie of this world, that we must fight to be on top. But in the kingdom of God there is always enough for everyone." - @kaitiestoddard You are exactly where you need to be. Trust the universe. The way I see it, you can either struggle against the currents. Or you can embrace the pull of the tides, let go and float with the flow the universe intended. 
Let go of stress. Let go of negativity. Let go of expectations. Breathe in, breathe out and relax to the reassurance that everything happens for a reason 💛 you will be okay ✨ — Sjana "It's good to do uncomfortable things- it's weight training for life" —Anne Lamott 🙌🏻 Life's dark places are opportunities to trust God knows the way. — Sharon Jaynes God turns our pain into purpose, our misery into ministry, and our devastation into anointed messages of hope and restoration.
- @sharonejaynes "As I express my gratitude I become more deeply aware of it. The greater my awareness, the greater my need to express it. What happens here is a spiraling ascent, a process of growth in ever expanded circles around a steady center. Start a SPIRALING ASCENT this #GratiTuesday: "A lot of recent writing on gratitude makes it sound like an insurance policy - as if the reason to feel grateful is to make sure that good things will continue to come our way. That feels spiritually materialistic - true gratitude is a natural response to the miracle of life as we experience it moment to moment, a sense of abundance from the heart that is independent of our desires for the future. Whatever we focus on tends to increase. Even if nothing more or better happens, our eyes are opened to the gift that we're always there..." R.J. RYAN sending you loving light and a reminder to love your body extra today. Yoga makes me love all the weird squish that happens when in unusual poses and love my body for its strength and abilities. 💕✨ — veggiekins Running is about finding your inner peace, and so is a life well lived. — Dean Karnazes No matter how you feel, get up, get dressed, put some music on and get it done!! You got this!! — Kayla Itsines "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." Sometimes... life is wonderful and fitness is all about Instagram transformations and feeling amazing inside and out. . ...other times fitness is the only thing you have left.. it's the only thing that's yours ...and yours alone. It's not the number on the scale or the inches lost or gained ...it's 30 selfish minutes of venting frustration and drowning out ... Know your worth 💛 Every day offers us all new opportunities to experience what we love. That's magic. "Allow beauty to shatter you regularly. The loveliest people are the ones who have been burnt and broken and torn at the seams yet still send their open hearts into the world to mend with love again, and again, and again. You must allow yourself to feel your life while you’re in it." — Victoria Frederickson How often do you pause to breathe in the beauty, and capture the moment in the camera of your mind? ✨ There is a growing body of research to support the positive effects of this gratitude practice called "SAVORING.” Savoring is the concept that being mindfully engaged and aware of your feelings during positive events can increase happiness in both the short- and long-term. As one researcher describes it, “It is like swishing the experience around in your mind.” ~ Fred Bryant, PhD What if instead of trying to weigh less we tried to BE more — Dorothy Beal I think sometimes we just need to hear this. We just need someone to be PROUD and say "you go girl... you got this". So incase someone hasn't said this to you this week, here you go 😘 "May the God of peace be with all of you. Amen." — Romans 15:33 Relying on anything other than God to feed our soul will only keep us in an ordinary, common relationship with Him. We’ll have all of His power, strength and wisdom available to us, but we’ll settle for the world’s morsels instead. And unless we choose to feast on God’s promises, we’ll spiritually starve ourselves. Having an uncommon hunger for God is something we have to cultivate. It’s something we can ask Him to give us. Let’s do that today. acceptance can bring you joy Happy Wednesday, awesome humans! Everything will be so good so soon just hang in there & don't worry about it too much the road to finding a treatment that works for you, you’re probably going to fail a treatment (or quite a few treatments!) along the way. That doesn’t mean you’re out of the race. You just have to brush yourself off and keep running. The race we’re in doesn’t have a finish line or a course map. You’re just running toward what you can see — the steps directly in front of you. The rest will reveal itself in time. 🎈🏃‍♀️ projecthappiness_org#WellnessWednesday Tip: Every habit has "ACTIVATION ENERGY" that is required to get started. Harvard happiness expert, Shawn Achor, explains this 20 second spark you need to start: "In physics, activation energy is the initial spark needed to catalyze a reaction. The same energy, both physical and mental, is needed of people to overcome inertia and kickstart a positive habit. There are multiple ways to do this, but the main rule of thumb for happiness habits is: You need to reduce the activation energy you need to do positive habits and increase it to do negative habits. So make new healthy habits 20 seconds easier to start." . "Conquering hills today prepares you for conquering mountains tomorrow." She's spirited, soulful and full of the essence of summer. *** Sunshine flows through her veins, bubbles through her body and pours out over everyone she encounters, washing over the earth like warm waves. Physical progress and visual changes are SLOW. This is one of the reasons I focus so much on the non-physical benefits of exercise, if you get your sweat in and make healthy choices to fuel your body and take care of yourself, you will FEEL good! With consistency the physical changes will follow. 💙👊🏼💦 — Kelsey Wells And may your first love last forever. P.S. YOU are your first love. Take care of yourself. Today, take care of yourself the way you would someone you love... I have a place to live, water, food and freedom. I am grateful. 💛✨🌏 ** ✝️ Commit your work to the Lord and your plans will be established. — Proverbs 16:3