They say that even peanut butter turns to diamonds when you crush it hard enough
peanut butter
spread onto the sandwiches in a million homes
by the knives of moms in aprons every morning
turned rare and special
under the treads of an iron industrial tractor
the ones I found
took the shape of words of a girl
laughing, crying, and clinging on to me
like the warm reflection of faraway lands
in the morning dew
I let myself fall in
and it was like the sigh of the ocean
the freedom of running as hard as you can
before your lungs remember they need air
but then
it slipped away away
and trying to catch it
I wondered
if those diamonds fall back
to peanut butter
when the tractor moves on
This poem is about mourning the loss of who someone was and celebrating all the magic they brought to your life before learning to accept them for who they have become. It is my first iteration.
Last night I tried to go to Judo Club for the first time but they were closed for Thanksgiving.
The thing that I wanted to understand the most is why I have this feeling every time I want to leave my house, that I don’t want to go. I always want to live a life of adventure but I’m beginning to suspect that is because I never leave.
So let me try to break it down. The thoughts that come to my head when I think about venturing out:
It is too much energy
It is probably cold outside
I’ll have less time for gaming
I probably won’t like it
What if Judo isn’t useful to me
I don’t know Judo at all what if I’m bad at it
What if I need a gi, I don’t have a gi
Maybe I should go back to jiujitsu
What if it doesn’t help with jiujitsu
Does jiujitsu even help with self defense
I feel like I’m wasting my time
And these types of thoughts are also pervasive when I think about doing anything. Shopping, trying to make friends, or eating out. I don’t want to do anything.
I want someone that I know who is also game, but at the same time I don’t want to bring the wrong person who I don’t trust or feel safe around.
It does help to have my audiobook so at least when I drive I can get some escape into a cool and interesting world.
I think I feel very alone in this world. I think I now understand why I always push my gf to be more ambitious or wish that she was. It’s because then I would feel less alone.
But there is a good reason for going outside and experiencing life. I always want to feel anything is possible, to feel alive and connected to the world. To take risks and grow as a person. I suppose the counter to that is just feeling that the world feels too unsafe and like it will not understand me or give me what I need. At home, I have my games and friends and it feels nice and comforting.
Audiobooks are almost a way for me to self-soothe outside my house.
In a way, youtube and social media make sense too. It is like having a friend who you can tell things to when you feel alone outside filming or going on adventures.
I want to accept my loneliness. The first thing that comes to my mind is to turn my loneliness into art.
As I slowly process, I start to think about how I can slowly start branching out by staying in my apartment complex but leaving my actual apartment.
I understand why people find solace in religion. I really feel that I need a group of people who are seeking to do the same thing as me. To do things in life. To have the same values and philosophies. Not just share the same favorite TV shows. I have a friend who is Christian and I envy his options in having those deep connections. It just doesn’t feel right to me, because I don’t believe in that faith.
I am almost seeking spirituality.
That is an interesting statement. I’ve always felt that was the thing that was missing from my life. I have career success, success in money and even love. It is spirituality that I’ve never embraced because I felt nothing from a lot of the types of spirituality proposed to me.
Two more things occur to me now.
First, is that I recently borrowed a book called Man’s Search for Meaning By Viktor Frankl and I will read it. It is actually funny that this book was available for me to borrow at this time (I had to put it on hold since there were no available copies when I first checked) because it is supposed to be the best book for my EXACT problem. Spirituality. Meaning. Purpose. It was written by a Holocaust survivor.
The second thing that occurs to me is that I used to do a lot of work to change the world. It’s been a long time since I have done that sort of thing, but I think it really gave me something of what I need right now. I think that’s why I love coaching so much. It fills many needs, but one of the needs is for doing something that is changing the world for the better.
That’s it for now I suppose. I will go read that book now (or listen to it, since I got the audiobook version).
There is no shame in loving hard, loving deeply. All love comes with sadness and a special sort of sadness that can be so unbearable we try to cover its beauty. But don’t be afraid. Love is the most beautiful emotion we feel.
We seeks people who can heal us, compliment us and challenge us. It is the best thing in the world to seek out such people. Finding other people can be the most rewarding experience ever.
However, when we feel lonely, it reminds us to ask ourselves the question:
How do I feel? Let the answer come to you.
What would make you happy? What if you gave yourself permission to fail?
If we worry too much about losing someone:
We feel the feelings
A reminder that we are always alone
We let our frustration out in a way that feels good (running, hitting something)
Creating art that feels good
Focus on the present, that is all that exists
We should never be afraid to love. But we should be afraid of trying to replace ourselves with them.
There was a big journey I went down in terms of working on myself, becoming more mature and being able to live a free and meaningful life.
I started by thinking that you needed to meet your own needs
Then I thought you needed to be good at asking for your needs
And finally, I thought you needed to process traumas and emotions
But I realized that they are all part of the same things and have different parts to play.
In a way, everything is about not abandoning yourself and taking care of yourself. You surround yourself with people who you can talk about what is on your mind truthfully and emotionally. They help you understand what you need. You are able to then give yourself what you need and walk down further along the path of understanding different parts of yourself that are in pain.
From processing emotions, we can truly love ourselves, and the people around us, and be present in the moment.
There is a sense that being with people who don’t accept us, don’t allow us to feel safe speaking our truth is self abandoment. In a way, even if someone meets some of our needs (for example is attractive enough to make us feel special), if we settle for someone who doesn’t love us or allow us to be ourselves, we are putting ourselves down.
Not allowing ourselves to meet our own needs (for example, asking for validation from others because we refuse to give it to ourselves) is self abandonment.
Refusing to look deeper, and shielding parts of ourselves from the world (for example, keeping a confident outward appearance when we feel anxious) is abandoning parts of ourselves and placing the outside world’s comfort above our own.
I just made a little discovery about the nature of “should” and regret. What should I do, what should I have done, what is the perfect next move. They are interesting ideas but they can sometimes limit our understanding of the truth.
It doesn’t matter what happened in the past, or what will happen in the future, only how we feel about them now.
That is why everything is about processing feelings and even the permission exercise processes feelings about the future. Nothing matters but now.
It doesn’t even make sense to think about the future and the past because all we can control is the now.
Because nothing matters but the moment, we can process the past, we can process the future, and make our decision from where we are on how to feel the present. We can make decisions from the vantage point of now. We can do things now. We can feel now.
All that Matters is Now
I was scared of the past
Scared of what I might find
I was scared of the future
Scared of what I might do
But the place where I stand right now
With all the things that brought me to this moment
I don’t know exactly if this is a core wound, but I strongly believe that I am responsible for people’s emotions and that I am a bad person.
In order to process this (a rebalance my emotions), I am going to focus on a time when I hurt someone and focus on the part right before it so I can remember that there is a good reason for doing what I did and perhaps have a little more compassion for myself.