Wishing You A Joyful Holidays

Wishing You A Joyful Holidays

holiday2016

Hello dear reader,

I realize I don’t often address you directly, do I? That feels funny since you are such a gift to me. <3

Most of the time, I write these words because I am experiencing something in my own life and I need my words, and playing with them, to feel into the experience. I find the whole process of writing, editing, and publishing what I need to express supportive and therapeutic. When I learn these words I need so much to enjoy and explore myself, are touching you too, it feels like the most beautiful gift. The generosity you show by reading and supporting them, and in turn me, I am so grateful for. Your care is an invaluable gift and I am so very grateful for you.

May you have a joy-filled Holiday season and may 2017 be filled with abundance for all.

Sending you lots of love and festive cheer,

TJSignature

 

Vulnerable

Vulnerable

vulnerable

It’s a risk. I’m afraid. What will you think of me? What will I think of me? If I tell my hidden truth?

I feel so ashamed. How could I show you that? I can not take the chance of showing my true face to you.

The idea of bearing it is terrifying. In fact, it is more than that, it is life threatening. My neediness threatens my life. It terrifies me. I don’t want to feel it.

I must protect from it. I can not need love. I can not show how I need you. I must protect who I truly am behind my performance of independence.

Why do I feel the truth in my heart is so ugly? So shameful? Why do I feel I must cover it up?

If you knew what was in me, if I showed it to you, I’d be under threat. From me. From you. From the weight of my unbearably inconvenient truth.

Yet if I can break through my fear and allow myself to be vulnerable, what lies on the other side? Could the very thing I fear so much be the very thing to set me free?

But of course. My life is not threatened by my vulnerability. Not anymore, at least. I’m now an adult, in charge of my life. I have the ability to unlearn the faux-protection granted by aloofness and lack-of-care, and allow myself to re-access the wholeness within me. With courage, I have what it takes to face the truth in my heart. I can be me. Vulnerable. Truthful. Completely me.

photo credit: emily mucha

Buying In & Out Of ‘Not Enough’

Buying In & Out Of ‘Not Enough’

buyin

I don’t want to feel this way any more. I don’t want to feel that I am ‘not enough.’ I want to see how wonderful and amazing I am—and how wonderful and amazing you are. It has been far too long that I have bought into the message that you and I are ‘not enough’ as we are.

In response to these feelings, I’ve decided I’m no longer accepting any message, internal or otherwise, that encourages me or anyone else to believe that who or what or why we are is ‘not enough.’ I’m done buying into it. It’s horseshit and it is created out of our polarized culture that thrives on encouraging us to feel separate, alone, and mindlessly focused on consuming in order to fill the void we’ve created together.

Not enough, not enough, not enough. Buy more, get more, perhaps then it’ll be enough.

I’ve decided to become like a superhero, vigilant to the messages that encourage us to feel like we are not good enough as we are. Fuck these messages, and fuck the cutting voice inside me who actually buys into its bullshit. Only I can give any thing the power to make me feel not good enough. Only I can choose to dis-empower myself. It takes my ‘buy in.’ I’ve decided it’s time I own this.

You and I are so much more than we realize—and that is the real truth. The breadth and heights of what we’re capable of is actually what we need to be reminded of—and yet our dominate culture has a different message. It sells us on ways to be more, better, faster. It fearfully sells us on ‘not enough’ in hopes we will buy into its offerings. It needs us to feel less than, in hopes we’ll feel we need it to feel whole. It’s a never-ending co-dependent see-saw we ride, if we allow it.

I’m buying out of ‘not enough.’ For it’s the only way I can see clearly through the noise and to the heart of my self. Doing my work to release this dominant message, I allow myself the ability to rise to any occasion, confident in knowing I am enough as I am.

photo credit: Ron Mader

Cool to Be Cruel

Cool to Be Cruel

cruel

Who was it that decided
It was cool to be cruel?

Who was it that instructed you
To cover up your envy.

With cutting words
Used to feel oh so clever.

Holding your balance
On the pedestal you’ve precariously perched on.

Hoping to tower over
Your item of envy.

They need to be smaller
Small, like you feel when you’re around them.

Small, like you feel.

When you forget how beautiful you are
You can be so very ugly.

Your cutting words
Will never leave you feeling valued.

Self-satisfied
Masturbated, perhaps.

Your ego safely tucked
Behind your manufactured cool.

Maybe they won’t notice
How insecure you are.

You’re more beautiful
Than you act.

It’s a shame
You don’t know.

How your envy leaves you exposed
To what’s behind your performance.

You’re caught up in comparison
And your need to control.

How insecure you are
You’re trying to feel better.

Looking at everyone else
You never see the best in you.

Never getting that your beauty
Isn’t forced into production.

It’s yours
Naturally.

Clever and cool are words
That do not express.

An opportunity for love wasted
Beauty masked.

photo credit: Dori

Everything Has The Same Value

Everything Has The Same Value

equalvalue

Everyone can be your teacher, and everything can be an object of worship.

When you can free yourself from the scales of judgement in your lower mind—where one thing is held in higher virtue than another—in your higher mind, everything has the same value.

In this space, you see the teacher learns from their student, as the student learns from their teacher. In every exchange and in every relationship, there is value to realize.

When you can accept yourself and your true nature, you see this shared value. In acceptance of yourself, you lose the need to rank and weigh, and to judge any thing and any one as better or worse.

In this space of equanimity, you understand you create the value you give, and the value you receive.

What’s curious is that in this effort to understand our world and improve our self, we allow ourselves to realize the infinite value we possess.

photo credit: DorkyMum