Life is painful most of the time. Your body hurts. You’re tired. The things people do and say hurt you or the world around you. And the worst part is, it’s all just one giant distraction keeping you from staying focused on your dreams.
There are so many ways to handle pain. And you did not invent the wheel. These strategies have been around since the beginning of time.
We run. We work less. We work more. We find our passions. We laugh. We make jokes. We write jokes. We crave balance. We pursue new dreams. The cycle seems to repeat.
But internally, is where the pain grows and festers. Where the impatience stirs. Where the fears get in the way. Where the confusing distraction of things that you don’t even care about, get in the way of you being you. Internally is this tiny nucleus of a nugget where the tweaking must happen to change the output of how you live your life and perceive it.
When I lived in California, I used to sit on the sand or float in the water, for hours. When I moved to the East Coast, I was terrified that I would not be the same without this subconscious ocean routine. How will I go at life in a place that does not have all the sensory inspiration? I once feared.
To make that transition easier, I surrounded myself with people similar to my California lifestyle. I paralleled my old routines, with ones out here such as running, teaching, improv, cafes, meditating, and prayer. I created my very own California life on the East Coast and that helped me adapt, as well as get a good sense of my new surroundings.
When I was finished establishing this, it felt as if I had caught up to where I was on the West Coast. And then, life happened. A health concern forced me to have a hard conversation with myself that went something like this:
“Well what am I supposed to do now? I proved I can survive in new surroundings. I proved I love going at life and seeking adventure constantly. I proved you don’t have to be married or have kids to be completely happy and fulfilled. How do I take this life to the next level? Bloomified wouldn’t be Bloomified if I didn’t use this way of living to accomplish my dreams. So what are my dreams now? What do I truly want?”
These thoughts led to a thorough investigation of all the dreams I have ever craved and how they all came true. Like a tracker, I went back in time and analyzed each one, watching where my decisions led to the dreams happening or why the dreams were not delivered to me in the way that I wanted them. Like when people say, “God answers your prayers in His own way.” Well yes, that is true, but if you play all your dreams backwards you can see you got exactly what you wanted and IN THE WAY THAT YOU WANTED. You just had to accept the growing pains that came along with some of those accomplishments. The reason I mention this is because when you make dreams, you have to be realistic. You have to know that they don’t just happen, and they have consequences just like any other action. They require focus, faith, patience and determination. And in order to craft some pretty great ones, you should know yourself quite well in order to maintain who you are along the way and be true to others.
As I went back in time to study how my dreams have come into fruition, I saw how my hard work, focus, and faith played into it all. Then I went back even further to the moment I first laid out what I wanted to pursue. In that moment where the dreams seem to fly into the air and ignite more ideas for the future, there was this strong sense of which ones were going to happen no matter what. Trusting that dreams will happen or will play out is not a made up thing. It’s real. There is a feeling and guiding force present helping you take the risk of embracing the calling to achieve whatever you are set out to do. There is simply some responsibility that comes along with carrying the process out.
Today, the new set of dreams that I have for myself are spread out in many different parts of my life. I believe some will happen very soon, and some will happen much later. There are some dreams that will happen in California, here on the East Coast, and in other countries. How do I focus on what is now, and how do I make sure I do not control or force dreams that require patience? The dreams from Cali to here only got me so far and taught me so much. I now plan to use that knowledge to go further down this rabbit hole of where I am in life, to maintain who I am as a person and what I want to accomplish.
For this next chapter of life and dreams, I had to get on board with not being able to go home to California to ignite the flame or confirm the feelings I have on the inside for each goal. And I don’t want to have to do that every time of course. I want to know I can confidently go after what I know to be true and important from my own inner being. With that, I decided to trust the foundation I’ve built out here, submit myself to the present more, and make this life even stronger before dreaming more specifically.
In order to solidify this foundation out here on the East Coast, I decided to create my own inner ocean in a very captivating way; a form of checks and balances, if you will. I remembered how I used to sit in the middle of my Santa Monica studio on a yoga mat, with a lit candle, on days when I could not bear to go outside even though it was perfect weather. I remember not knowing at the time why I wouldn’t just go outside and play like usual. There seemed to be this internal unrest; a battle of wanting to be inside to focus, but wanting to be on the sand at the same time. Subconsciously, I was teaching myself how to live without the ocean, little bits at a time, for the day it would not be there as I pursued the world at large.
Now, worlds apart, with snow outside my basement studio in Hyattsville, Maryland, I lit a candle on my yoga mat and mimicked what I used to do in Santa Monica. Turning off all the lights, I sat down criss-cross applesauce and placed the flame below my face on the mat so that I could look down at it and feel the heat of the flame on my cheeks.
Immediately, something felt very familiar. Like being in two places at once, but in a very happy and content way. My eyes were open during this meditation session. It was much easier to get to a state of steady prayer and meditation as I looked down at the flame instead of closing my eyes and tilting my head up to the ceiling. I kept thinking, This is what looking down at a crystal ball must be like. Haha.
As I looked down at the flame, I began to trance back in time. I immediately saw myself having a very, vivid meditation sesh like this, right before I moved to the East Coast on this same yoga mat in my old apartment. For some reason, I had blocked out how effective it was. Sitting in silence and staring down at the flame out here just seemed beyond me or me beyond it. But here I was, letting the silence take over and finding the comfort in this little world I love to turn to. I simply sit there for however long it takes to understand what I need to accomplish per chapter of life or for those to come. (For building endurance to sit in silence, see Lake Shrine Temple Meditation Hours on Friday Nights, or sit in silence for 30 minutes at a time, until you can do this for 2 hours straight.)
Staring down at the candle, many different scenes from my past sort of continued this story for me. There were flashbacks to specific moments of sitting at my favorite spots on the sand in Cali. It seemed I was supposed to figure out why I was reminiscing about these meditation sessions on the sand.
I saw one of my most favorite memories and spots on 11th Street in Newport, where I met a great friend who helped me get through the second stage of divorced life. That chapter was integral in rejoining the world again and being positive about dating. Then, I saw this cozy nook near some cliffs at Crystal CoveI where I used to ride my bike and plop it on the sand super early in the morning just to watch this one surfer who crushed this spot all on his own. I learned how to be comfortable reading the Bible here and pray the rosary where no one was around. Finally, this little trip took me to this isolated spot in Will Rogers where I would get away from the racket of Santa Monica and just zone out. This is where I decided I wanted to leave California. It was the only place I could admit and tell the ocean that I needed to go. I could feel the pain all over again as I meditated so hard, feeling as if I was really in that exact spot on the sand, memorizing each set of waves and their patterns like I used to.
To what I thought was the end of a healing trip down memory lane, there was one last portal of a memory lingering. It was as though I didn’t want to relive it. Like I had been ignoring it for years, letting it sit there frozen in the front lobe of my brain. I chose to let it come to life, and what I saw gave me so much peace.
I was sitting on the floor in my room in front of my nightlight as a kid. I remembered how after my mom would put me to sleep, I’d get out of bed and sit in the dark staring down at the light as if it was a candle. It was my safe place to talk to myself, to talk to God, and just dream endlessly about all the things I wanted to be when I grew up.
I slowly came back to the present. I sat there for a while on my mat, piecing together all the memories, and drawing important conclusions about life and living. Ultimately, I realized how good it felt to just “sit on the sand” again even though the sand isn’t outside my door anymore.
Beyond the sand, that nightlight memory triggered the strongest sensation and strongest foundation I forgot is naturally instilled in me. I realized, that this inner way of being is literally how I tick, how I face life, and where I find the answers I constantly crave. This is where I find God. This is how I overcome frustration. This is how I make sense of the world. And the good thing is, I can do this anywhere, very easily, without sand. Even, without a candle now.
I felt very grateful for having this moment on the mat, finally identifying this part of me . . . of all of us! At last.
It seems this place in our hearts has pieces of everything. It is your own inner home, as I like to call it, where we can see the ocean vividly if we need to, where we can recall memories that remind us of who we are, or where we can dream and dream and dream, endlessly about the things we want to accomplish or be “when we grow up.” For the sake of annulments, they use this tactic in the Catholic Church as well, to go back in time and heal your past.
So then, why even write about it?
Well, for starters, it’s frustrating when people tell you to, “Create your dreams! Go at life! Just believe in yourself!” but then they don’t care to teach you how to do all of those very uplifting things. Like we’re all supposed to just keep reinventing the wheel or something.
Maybe the patterns and tactics will not be the same for you as they have been for me, but through Bloomified, I attempt to convey the steps of how to believe in the visions of what you want for yourself, by showing mine slowed down frame by frame. I also believe that if you can teach yourself to sit in silence and find this inner home, then you are less afraid to dream big. Big dreams will simply be like many broken-down small ones leading to one huge amazing result of an accomplishment that will help you and the world around you. It’s simply hard to navigate when you only focus on the big dream – you need mini ones to get you there.
The teacher in me sees myself as one of my own students, and what I did for them, is what I try to do for myself.
People say you cannot control the things that happen, or that the world is simply chaos. I’m not so sure about that. When it comes to people, they have the ability to decide on who they are, how they think, and how they act or react to every moment in their lives. There is no excuse for a bullshit move – you just need to admit that you pulled one and move forward according to different patterns.
I don’t believe in controlling things for the sake of commiting horrific actions or even slightly manipulating others to do wrong, but I do believe you can submit yourself in a thought-out way, to goodness which is technically a way of manipulating yourself for the sake of others and your own benefit. Through this submission to goodness, you can then dream with what feels like clarity and freedom. And from these accomplished dreams, comes the beautiful ripple effect of positivity and inspiration on our communities, on the youth, and on ourselves.
If you do not believe in God, or find it hard to wrap your mind around believing in such an idea, then read up on how to establish an informed conscience. At the very least, when one pursues to achieve dreams, remember that your actions will affect others, and thus, I would hope you have good intentions not just for yourself, but for the world around you. Some of the most successful people by default benefitted a multitude of others, which is probably why we are aware of their grand mark on the world in the first place.
In short, an informed conscience is simply deciding on how to keep yourself in check in order to use your skills for good, based on an internal moral code you discipline yourself to abide by. Granted, most of this literature is backed by the lives of the saints or by Ignatius Loyola, a teacher and educator within the Jesuit community of Catholics. He was brilliant. He was da man. Whether you’re Catholic or not, he teaches how the inner mindset works for trancing out in order to pray effectively, and living a life according to practical means of just being a good person on the regular.
Once you are able to consistently live a life with good intentions, your actions can be trusted to always filter out the bad in a natural way. Thus, also helping you when you come into the presence of a person who makes hurtful decisions that affect others negatively or puts others in a state of manipulation. It takes time, mistakes, tracking patterns, and being honest with yourself to do such a thing quite consistently and to detect it in others in a mature way.
Volunteering with the homeless, volunteering with our youth, teaching, praying, confession, and writing has helped me practice the latter everyday. I prefer to work in communities as well, so that I cannot get away with lying, manipulating people in my life, or living a double life where I say one thing and do another. We all have these tendencies. We all make grave mistakes.
But there is a way to effortlessly make these mistakes less, therefore having a greater impact on our communities and on ourselves.
Bloomified has always been a place where I can conclude the findings after researching such concepts. And in a sense, I confirm it to the public so that I practice these findings regularly and pursue them in my ordinary life leading me to more credible conclusions.
The beautiful part about creating such a pattern of checks and balances for yourself is that, YOU also benefit greatly from it. For every inch you evolve, the people around you evolve. You will notice a change in how people talk to you or receive your ideas and ways of living. You become less anxious and more focused. More confident and self aware. You are able to be more creative and less worried about the world around you because you are already actively trying to do your part.
The last benefit is how the world around you changes for the better. It’s as if you and your community begin to jive together, are on the same page, and accept the growth as one without even having to admit it. I believe that the more people consciously live this way, the more people can accomplish what they want in life together. And isn’t that what most of us desire anyway? Honest and Reliable Friends. Close Family Members. Loving and Committed Spouses. Strong Community. Love. Passion. and Peace.
At Last.
