I can be courageous to express my feelings and to live a true to myself when...

I can be courageous to express my feelings and to live a true to myself when...

I'm not fighting my inner-selves. I have noticed as I've been in the recovery program of OA, that my inner-selves get along a whole lot better than they ever have. I've also  noticed that I judge myself a lot less, and that "true to myself" takes on a different meaning. It's "myselves"...meaning that the whole f me is involved because we know and respect each other's roles in navigating life. It was only once I started exploring my inner-selves, their needs, wants, desires, pains, etc, that I was able to begin to put aside other's expectations of me without being self-destructive and acting like a rebellious teenager. I am thankful for my rebellious teenager...she keeps me moving and not accepting the status quo. However, when I was living life from a place of fear and resentment and anger, my rebellious teenager was acting from those places, and that was causing more pain to myself and others. Now she plays a healthy role in my life, keeping me aware of when when my voice needs to be heard, by myself and others. She also takes care of my inner-children who want to play and have fun, not worrying about anything and exploring new things...like this journaling workshop I'm doing right now (which is where this writing prompt came from). So, to be true to myself, it's important that my inner-selves love and respect one another.

January Cats

On a quiet night under the sun

Here's an old poem Dodger and I wrote together when we were in high school. I think it's incomplete, but I'm still going to post it here for posterity.

On a quiet night under the sun
I met a talking frog and had some fun
I rode on his back to a candy flavored stream,
saw an upwards waterfall,
and then had the greatest dream

The frog said “you could be like me if you tried”
“Come on” he said and then he flied
So without thinking I leaped from his back
and landed on the moon
“Blue cheese” I yelled and the frog jumped, too

We ate and ate of the moon’s delight
Oh man, it was such a sight
We ate and ate ‘till we could eat no more
We ate so much, we couldn’t get out the door

“What shall we do?” the frog exclaimed
“I know” I said “We shall play a game”
“Which one?” the frog said
“Let’s play the one where we pretend we’re dead” I said

“Oh, that sounds like fun” the frog yelled “What do we do?”
“Well” I said “Just do what I do and you’ll be cool, too”

Falling in Reverse & Disturbed

Dodger and I drove to Peoria this afternoon to watch one of our favorite bands, Disturbed. Falling in Reverse opened for them. We saw FIR for the first time last fall at Louder Than Life.

Here are a few of the videos I took from the show...