Words To Live By

Choose your words wisely, because it's all about peace, love, unity, and respect #PLUR

Read this definition from UrbanDictionary to find out the history of the word plur:

Happy New Year!

I hope this will remind, inspire, and give hope to you all.  Have a very happy new year full of peace, love, and happiness.

xoxo

The Nature of Life is Love

We live in this world made up of nature, but sometimes I forget that I am part of this natural environment that was created long ago and that continues to allow the existence of life in so many forms. I find it interesting that nature is thought of as a mother and God is called our father. Together, these two concepts create the world of which we humans are a part. It takes both a body made by God and a natural way of being made by Mother Nature to make life exist, but it is the love we each create that makes it continue. Finding out how to keep our bodies alive by consuming good food with enough nutrients as well as figuring out how to exercise it in a way that it lasts is just as important as finding the love within our spirits that keeps our nature in a harmonious flow with the rest of the world.

People who do not follow their nature or look for love in it tend to lose their minds, believing that the spirit of life is evil. Thus, the body is the holder of evil. These people are the ones who kill innocent beings, for, to them, the existence of life is evil and they would prefer it to be gone. On the other hand, those of us that experience love in our lives have created it within ourselves and allow it to manifest in our experiences with others. We find love everywhere we go and in everything we do. This is the spirit in those of us who want to survive and help others survive, as well. It is the complete opposite of evil and it will always outlast it, for evil kills but love creates more life.

Take What You Want

When you know what you want, take it.  Do the things you want to do.  If you don't want to do something, stop doing it...you may want to do it again later, but let time tell.  Eat chocolate, if chocolate is what you want.  Spend money for things you want to have in your life and remember to give love to the people you want around you.  Take the job you want and accept the praise you deserve.  Your life will be empty unless you take it and make it yours.

Lose to Gain

At several times in my life, I felt that I was losing things that I thought belonged to me.  I thought that because I had obtained what I wanted temporarily, the presence of this thing would keep manifesting itself in my life and continue to make me happy.  After losing things that I thought I would have forever, however, I realized that I have to keep working to gain things but also work to keep the things I have already gained.  It is essential to progress in life in order to obtain and keep everything that makes me happy in my life and to ensure that everything I have in my life continues to make me happy.

I never want to feel like I have everything because that is the point when I will stop focusing on my "keeps" and begin noticing everything I lose.  Although I lose things all the time, working towards new gains helps me move on and stop missing the stuff that gets lost.  To me, life is about winning some of the things you want and trying not to lose the things you have already worked to win.

Gaining both vulnerability and confidence was a huge step in my life because I allowed my mind to search myself for things I have lost and to discover new things about myself.  I became okay with opening up into my thoughts and memories, even the darkest ones that I had tried to hide from my mind for years, because I was confident that I could use the things I found buried deep within my heart to help fix whatever it was that kept leading me to lose things that were important to me.  It was not until I noticed that I kept losing things, however, that I let myself be vulnerable to change and become confident in the person that had grown out of every thought, feeling, and experience I revisited.  I gained a surer sense of the things I wanted to have in my life and I decided what I needed to help me make my place in the world a good one. 

Although my dreams often seem unreachable under current circumstances, I make them that way so that I will never feel like I have gained everything.  If a day comes when all of my personal dreams have come true or I cannot seem to create a better dream for myself at that moment, I will make my dream to help others reach their dreams.  There will always be people with goals they have not reached, so there is always something to work toward in this world. 

For luscious lips:

Take a few minutes and try the "brown sugar lip scrub" to have your lips feeling smooch-able and your taste buds saying mmm.  Whether you have a special someone to impress or just want to get rid of that layer of roughness, go ahead and get those lips soft and sugary for the rest of the day!  You probably have both ingredients (brown sugar and olive oil) in your kitchen already, so what are you waiting for?  

"It Takes Courage and Character to Care"

I highly recommend this film to anyone looking for somewhere to go, something to feel, or some reason to cry.  From the story to the acting, this movie goes deep into the heart and pulls out the root of human suffering.  The plot is extremely emotional but changed my perspective on teachers, inner-city public schools, and people in desperate need who choose not to help themselves.  A truly great watch!

Breathe in, Breathe out

When my emotions get really heavy on my heart, it aches.  My eyes burst with tears and I breathe out heavily as I release my sobs and wail like a baby.  Instinctively, I breathe in again, but my heart shakes until air reaches the deepest core of my chest.  The process repeats itself until some internal force of hope tells my mind to pull my body off of the ground and look for something good, even if I must look into a mirror and stare at my eyes to see that there is goodness in the present and happiness in the future, regardless of the misery in the past that caused such a breakdown.

When I think about life as a physical experience during a very emotional moment, I realize that emotions are as natural to life as the respiratory, urinary, and digestive systems are for the body.  It is essential to listen to my body tell me what to do each and every second of the present: when to eat, when to sleep, and when to use the restroom.  However, all of these things are simple behaviors that all animals must learn in order to survive.  Humans learn best when our emotions are involved, which we are taught about as kids but do not actually learn until we experience them for ourselves.  Emotions analyze experiences from the past and determine which behaviors should be repeated based on the ones that brought about the most pleasurable outcomes.  For example, after a certain age, a kid will be made fun of and feel embarrassed if she cannot control her bladder.  Her emotional pain will teach her to change her physical behavior and hold her bladder until she can find a restroom.  Similarly, a child who receives praise from his teachers and parents on a well-done project will link positive emotions to working hard and, therefore, will likely strive to succeed in an effort to bring more pleasurable feelings into his life.  Essentially, our emotions are what teach us to survive and lead us to the things we accomplish.  So, this phenomenon referred to as life is really a mixture of the body combining with the emotions to make humans physical beings of mental creation.

Just as the body is free to breath whenever it wants, I try to be honest with my emotions because that is part of letting my spirit be free.  I love going to the edge of my emotional capacity where my mind's eye can clearly see what I am feeling and what is causing me to have these feelings.  I also have to let myself dig for things that my mind has been suppressing in order to release my entire spirit.  It is in these "emotional places" of truth and freedom that I am vulnerable—things I may not have ever thought stand out and I understand the experiences in my life.  From these findings, I create ways to make changes in my life, fix problems, and produce amazing work.

The truth about life is that there is always good and there is always bad, but they are all just part of life.  As John Mayer puts it, "You're going to have at least one moment a week where you don't feel right.  But maybe it won't feel so wrong if you know it's supposed to happen."  Sometimes one extreme seems more abundant and one seems absent.  In these emotionally heavy times, I take a moment to forget about all emotion and just focus on the bodies version of the present, which is the breath.  I can change my emotional perspective from negative to positive, renew my hope, and move my attention towards the positive pieces that make up the whole, leaving the negative pieces untouched and unnoticed, like the last slices of pie after a filling Thanksgiving dinner.

Just smile and breathe...everything is going to be alright.

Poem Inspired by Adam Sandler as Mr. Deeds

A Lesson in Measuring Worth

“Work is just a challenge,” the old man says excitedly.  And business is a pleasure.
When stocks plunge, don’t worry, because numbers only measure the height of peaks
and the length of journeys that have begun.  They inform the miles flown,
the recipes perfected, and the dates that matter.  Sizes change, prices go up, but
the most treasured matter is a life of ease.

Assumed is the promise between friends that we will always return to each other. 
We tried to plan our lives, but somebody always changes it.  I’m pretty sure
I’m not fucking it up; surprise keeps it interesting though.  Growth
in a bank account can change a man for a season, but he goes back

because Crazy Eyes and Murph miss him.  Legacy is a fossil
in the hearts we’ve changed.

Everyone has traditions, a place they are part of, faces they recognize, and ways of life
that feel comfortable.  Language differs among kinds…banter always goes—
as does praise when deserved.  Loyalty is assumed and love makes it easier. 
Energy moves us through time.  Breaking into a song that’s rolling through my head
and out my lips…everyone joins in.  

Looks on a face judge the situation more clearly than words.  People cannot lie
in numbers, just as logic, when pointed out, cannot be denied.  Arrangements depend
on attitudes, so remember how he first treated you and he will come back nicer.  
We only look for something when we want it—sometimes it is found
without trying, just listen to strangers.

The doctor will know what the lawyer won’t, but they can both save me
like a kiss after a rough day.  Which came first: the spy or the target?  I want
a respected man to be honest and help make sense of the puzzle—
putting together the present and the past to find the next piece.  Read the signs
and respond.  The heart will always lead to what we want.

The best things are shared and the best insults are true.  But truth exposed humiliates
the liars.  Suckers get pissed and the desperate become dangerous.  The real ones know
the ways.  Feelings and knowledge start and end each day—what continues
in dream worlds are impressions of the focal thoughts that clog and explode
in my mind; I only remember the good ones.

Love is forgiving of all that was, accepting of all that is, and hopeful for everything
that will be.  We know it when our beauty is free, our friendship is generous,
and our failures are funny.  Compete with cars to measure success and use karats
to quantify bliss. But pearls don’t protect and money can’t make us strong, so rely
on a wealth of love when evaluating this life. 

The Taste of Love

Taste is the feeling I get when one of my senses experiences awareness of this physical environment of which I am a part.  There are several types of taste, including food in my mouth, the taste of sound waves against my ear drums, or the glass iPhone screen that my thumbs taste.  People taste my body language and eyes taste everything, sensing each other better than anything else.  One sense of taste that I often tend to forget to pay attention to is the kind of thoughts that I make.  Although many people refuse to believe in a sixth sense and think they can only recognize or control the five original senses they learned in school, it is true that I actually create the thoughts that go through my mind, just as I choose the flavors that go into my mouth.

I often forget or confuse the taste of thoughts, however, because it is easy to experience it as an emotion or mood that I think I do not control.  I must actually use my mind to make every thought I taste.  It sounds daunting at first, but then I realized that I could use this power to control the experience I have of my life.  Just as the other senses in my body help me filter tastes and smells so I can make the enjoyable ones more abundant and avoid the unhappy ones, I can use my emotions to help my mind filter thoughts.  Essentially, I can feel amazing at anytime just by thinking of a good thought, but it is just as easy to get stuck in a cycle of producing bad thoughts and make my experience of life absolutely miserable.

While it is true that I make thoughts myself, most of the time, my mind is not conscious of the creation of them because I am more focused on my bodily sensations.  When I think of life as the making of an artistic work, however, I become very conscious of my mental taste.  I aim to please the sense of imagination just as a chef aims to please taste buds.  I know the types of sights I like, the sounds I like to hear, the touch that feels good, and the types of energy by which I like to be surrounded.  One day, that energy could be loud bass, live DJs and a crowd of 30,000 while, on others, it could be the energy of just me in my apartment with the things, music, and people with whom I prefer to interact.  So, while my physical tastes can have a profound impact on how my body feels, my mental tastes determine my emotional health.  Just as I choose to put healthy food into my body and exercise routinely in order to keep my body functioning properly, I must choose thoughts that keep my soul living happily.

The world has survived because of the love living beings create and live in with themselves and others.  It is essential to be aware that this love must be shared in order to keep the world going into the future.  Until I fully understood this, my misconceptions of love had the to ability to (and did) hurt me, for I did not know exactly what I was looking for.  I even tried to force love with someone who seemed like the definition of the person I could love.  Even after I met my love, it was not until I believed that it could exist in me without the presence of the person I felt it for.  I realized that I would not be able to forge love with anyone, and I would know the real thing when it came.  Now I know what it is to love and be loved.  It is having the taste of love in my mind and letting this taste pick up on the love of others.  I can try to explain what it is I love about another, but the best way is just to say that my sense of love matches theirs.  Our loves recognize each other and our souls want to be mates.

It is important to always keep the taste of love in my heart and also in my mind so that I will recognize real love when it is shared with me and others will always be able to taste the love I share with them.