Advice to Self

I have a lot to say but I am not really sure if I will cover everything in this post.

First of all a video. Sam shared this with me a few days ago. It is an inspiring, no excuses, kick in the ass sort of video so if you are feeling defeated and sensitive at the moment it will either knock you out of your rut or pummel you into the floor.

I am not 100% sure how I feel about this video (I do like it). I do agree that if you use your free time to productively work toward your goals that you will make major, possibly life-changing gains. I also agree that getting good at anything takes a long time and a lot of hard work. I wasn’t born with a pencil in my hand, writing sonnets by age six. I had an interest in poetry. I read it first (voraciously let me add) and eventually I started writing my own. I didn’t make any real progress until I started to set aside time to work on it daily (a practice I have neglected of late). My concerns are that I have an obsessive and addictive personality. I am not ambitious so much as destructive. I take everything a step (or 3) too far. I have literally worked myself into the hospital. So at the moment I do not know how to be obsessed with something in a healthy way.

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I was abused and I don’t need to get over it. It happened and there is no getting over something like that. I keep trying to return to the me I might have been if I hadn’t been abused but that person doesn’t exist! The only person I have to be, is who I am right now and this person still has issues, issues the me I might have or should have been can’t fucking fathom, much less handle. While I have moved forward, broken the cycle, created a beautiful and safe environment in which I can thrive I am still going to feel things that scare me, that shame me, that frustrate and exhaust me. I am occasionally going to remember something sad or something terrible.  I am not living that life anymore thankfully but I can’t erase it either.  I can’t erase the me that was betrayed and mistreated but I am in a place now where I can do better for her.

My Book is Available!

Right now it is only available at Lulu because we have to proof for Amazon and at the moment it is in just a paperback version  Sam and I completely forgot the E-Book probably he thought I didn’t want an E-Book version because he bases a lot on voice tone and sometimes my voice tone is inexpressive. Anyways I will remind him later.

My Book!!!!!

http://www.lulu.com/shop/yves-k-morrow/an-alterable-void/paperback/product-21480986.html

Oloriel Moonshadow designed the beautiful cover check out her blog =)

12 Tips for Finding the Perfect Image

Art By: Mystic Mornings

People frequently ask me how I select the artwork for my blog so without further adieu I offer you my humble tutorial.

1. First you need to identify the style of art that best suits your piece: Surrealism, Modernism, Fantasy, Impressionism, Abstract, Cubism, Pop Art, Expressionism, Photorealism, Sumi-E etc. Personally I use Surrealism the most but each person has a different style. Also determine if you want a painting, a photo, anime-style, or a sketch. Sometimes instead of Surreal Art I would search for Surreal Photos or Surreal Sketch
2. Second identify the mood/theme of your piece. Sometimes it is enough to type in Surreal Art Vengeance.
3. If a particular image or metaphor stands out even better. Fantasy Scarecrow.
4. I also browse free wallpapers there are lots of beautiful fantasy photos freely available. I often use the free wallpapers for my lighter pieces as they tend to be pretty. For women I often find that fantasy works best. There are also a few really beautiful fantasy images of couples. I have the hardest time with couples as it is very hard to find actual couples as opposed to models posing.
5. Let’s say I am searching and I find a beautiful image but it is not appropriate for the poem in question. If the artist is not stated I simply do a reverse image search. Though it is not 100% when I do find the name of the artist I like I can peruse their collection and A) Check if their work is available for public use and B) See if one of their other pieces is more suitable.
6. Occasionally I find an image that strikes me but isn’t totally on point. Often I will find I like the color palate in which case I do a reverse image search again and then click on Visually Similar Images in the search options.
7. When I am looking for photos on meditation or spirituality just searching wallpapers is sufficient I might type things like: Mudra, Mantra, Zen etc.
8. Sometimes I am looking for something well scary so I type in things like: ghosts, horror, Gothic, creepy, Victorian pretty strait forward that. I often do: Surreal Art Creepy
9. Sometimes I base my search on a particular time period or mythology
10. Sometimes I find that my search word just happens to coincide with the name of a movie, band, or tv show that’s when the thesaurus come in handy!
11. You can always get outside and take your own pictures or create your own art, particularly if the piece you’ve written was inspired by something you’ve seen in real life
12. Beautiful pictures inspire so occasionally I will find an image I like so much I simply have to write about it!

The Tao of Abundance

One of my favorite self-help/philosophy books is the Tao of Abundance By: Laurence G. Boldt. When I was in college I was a bit obsessed with self-help books. Sometimes the advice would seem tailor-made, sometimes I’d come up empty but whatever the advice it was always Sam who ended up making positive lifestyle changes. I would read/analyze and share my findings with him and he would integrate the advice seamlessly. Sam doesn’t like to read (I know blasphemy) so I end up reading and interpreting larger texts. I forget what I read quickly so I admit I store information in his brain for safe-keeping. He’s like a human version of Wikipedia. Anyways the aforementioned book is filled with brilliant quotes to contemplate and I use it more as a meditation I suppose. You can open up any page and find beautiful bits of wisdom. In the back of the book the author poses all sorts of questions and though I have owned the book for 10 years I have never bothered to answer any of them. So I did a few for today.

I have limited my ability to receive love by

Withdrawing socially

Repressing my feelings

Failing to communicate my needs clearly

Avoiding conflict

Devising negative scenarios and accepting them as truth

Waiting for the other person to take initiative

Declining invitations

Shirking responsibility for my own happiness

Failing to extend compassion to myself

Forcing my opinions on others (how often do we decide that we aren’t good enough for someone?)

Using inflammatory terms like “always” “never”

Taking other people’s emotional states personally

Defending when I should be listening and seeking to understand

Keeping score

Comparing relationships

Trying to “fix” (Sam will tell me about a conflict and damn it if I don’t immediately try to find a resolution)

Antagonizing/Boundary Pushing (ODD at its finest)

I have limited my ability to experience joy by

Taking myself too seriously

Trying to control my environment

Spending too much time indoors

Avoiding challenge and discomfort

Denying my self creative expression

Comparing myself to others

Defining success by social constructs rather than personal standards

Basing my happiness on conditionals (I’ll be happy when I win the lottery, get a job, lose ten lbs etc.)

Shirking responsibility for my happiness

Setting unattainable goals

Holding on to too much clutter

I have limited my natural intuitive ability by

Withdrawing my creative outlets

Neglecting my mental/physical/spiritual health

Repressing and/or rejecting my negative emotions

Pursuing perfection

Ignoring my sense of shame when I’ve gone against my nature

Being dishonest/insincere when approaching change

Rejecting my needs/dreams/self

Breaking promises I’ve made to myself

Engaging in mind-numbing and/or addictive activities

Defining success/abundance by social constructs rather than personal standards

Imitating others

Running away/hiding from myself and/uncomfortable situations

Engaging in self-destructive activities (including vicious internal dialogues)

The Happines Game

CheryBery

Happiness is a mind state for which I have limited experience. I have not encountered a lot of happy people. I’ve encountered a lot of fear. I’ve encountered the pained exaggerated smiles of marionettes on display but happiness is something I see more often in children and dogs than I do in other grownups. I have been happy but happiness is elusive and fleeting it cannot be held down or fabricated. I have never succeeded in purchasing happiness and I have certainly never imbibed a substance that has achieved that state in an authentic way. We are not meant to be happy all the time. Call me insane but I wouldn’t even want to be happy all the time. I believe we are able to experience happiness because of the contrast. Part of living, perhaps even the reason for living itself is experience, growth, evolution. Part of what is wrong with society is that we spend so much time trying to create happiness that we alienate ourselves from any genuine emotional experience.

*

I mean no offense whatsoever in saying this, as I myself suffer with mental illness, but I believe that many of our neuroses evolve from the unnatural way in which we now live. The work we do nowadays is often abstract. We create services and products that are essentially unnecessary and sometimes even harmful to life. Working from the land you know precisely what you’re doing and why each component in the process is essential. Dealing with the bureaucracy of a modern society could push anyone off the deep end. Life is no longer intuitive or instinctive, we live in constructed realities doing seemingly arbitrary things so that we can acquire a wealth of mind numbing, soul depleting items. Some of us, myself included, are simply unable to reconcile the way we are expected to live our lives with our heart’s directives.

*

Humans are social creatures but achieving a sense of connection is difficult when our link to nature is severed. Society hasn’t brought us closer I think it has done precisely the opposite I think it has made us afraid of each other. We are so busy assimilating veils and labels we have no concept of who or what lies beneath them.

*

For me one of the greatest epiphanies in my relations with others was to let go of my expectations. I don’t assume that someone is bad or good only that they are human. The moment I stopped looking at other people as a potential threat I started to see their struggles, fears, their hearts which explained the behaviors which I had found before completely incomprehensible and sometimes even disgusting. This is quite easy to do one on one but I am still unable to look at people in authority objectively and humans in a herd still frighten me. I am all for people working synergistically and harmoniously I find it quite beautiful in villages where they freely share their possessions and raise their children together as a family. My problem is with more modern lifestyles. Though we live practically piled on top of each other I feel little sense of community (sometimes I do). All I see is fear and in my mind fear is a precursor to hate and violence. There seems to be this intense fear of being taken advantage of and thus generosity has become associated with naivete and weakness. Sam has all these humanitarian projects in mind. He’s discussed these projects with his coworkers but they are unable to fathom work that does not provide monetary incentive. Sam and I will never be rich but I don’t think it is always the poor that live on their knees.

*

I have immense trouble with the concept of work as it is presently conceptualized. Slaving away mindlessly at the expense of the environment and other people for money. I want to work on an organic vegetable farm something where I feel good about the labor I am engaged in.

*

Though I was somewhat offended at the time, Sam postulated that I might be getting sick so much because I have spent so much time indoors lately. At the time I thought he was an unsympathetic bastard and I felt a little persecuted but I always consider what’s said to me as if it contained wisdom. I decided that he is probably right I have spent a lot of time indoors, online, inactive. Most of our illnesses come from poor circulation so I believe and I am thinking I need to toughen up. Old Swedish people go swimming when I perceive it as jacket wearing weather. There is a robustness there that we just don’t posses anymore and I don’t believe it is a case of self-destructive unreasonable stubbornness. Yes they are tough but they are not really bothered by the arctic temperature of the water quite the opposite looking at their contented smiles I am pretty sure they are actually enjoying themselves. It pains me to say this but I think I might actually be a wimp. While I don’t abhor the idea of spending all day in the forest (not at all it sounds amazing) there are other ways in which I have come to underestimate and insulate myself.

*

I have been looking at my Depression in the wrong way. I keep thinking that I have to become normal. That I have to join society but that may not be the case. Certainly I have to work with certain parts of society if I am to live in the city and in this time line but I don’t have to become someone else entirely. I have to A) Stop running from myself B) Let love in C) Move in accordance with the Tao D) Rejoin nature. I am an animal and I am fucking proud of it. No I don’t intend to move into the forest at least not yet but I don’t have to turn my back on the world just because I am against some of the constructs we’ve generated. I am naturally moral so while I may act oddly at times I am not a criminal. I don’t have to consciously remind myself not to kill or rape because that goes against my nature. Seriously we know how to treat each other already. I think society’s laws and guilt create crimes and villains. Are there overly opportunistic people out there? Of course and ironically those are the people we give all the power and money to, comes back to that fear thing. Which is probably why I can’t totally shake my mistrust of authorities.

*

I realize I am rambling but it seems to me that the key to happiness or at least contentment is in reconnecting, reaching out, and gratitude. It is not about creating safety nets, cocoons, or personas. I think gratitude comes in having to work for what you possess, in the earning and laboring stage. While you can achieve a sense of gratitude even if you are unable to work I do think it helps when you’ve had to fight a little.

*

As a parent sometimes I feel all I say is no and sometimes I don’t even understand why I have to say no because some things seem so damn obvious. One of the hardest things I am finding to get across is cause and effect. For some reason Isadora doesn’t see that her behavior results in certain outcomes. If she runs top speed into the wall, she blames the collision on the wall (never mind the wall is inanimate and can’t dodge). How many of us still do that? I realize I do it quite a lot. Cause and effect is really hard to grasp in an artificial world. Now I am not saying it was better in the past our experiences are largely based on perception. I am not saying give up all your possessions and run naked into the forest. I am not saying that all of our great technological advancements are bad either. We’ve done some amazing things, human ingenuity is truly impressive. I am not saying we need to live hand to mouth or in some dogged day to day ritual. Part of being human is to express and create even cavemen embraced that and I am pretty sure they had more than their share of challenges. What I am saying is that humans are confused and I think modern society is isolating at times. I am saying there are paradoxes., that nothing is good or bad, it just is plain and simple. I am basically saying we have the answers inside, we know who we are already, the universe is not a soul-raping monster, we are not monsters either. I guess I am saying live and be. Understand that you don’t and can’t control everything and that makes the ride a lot more fun. Life is happening now no matter what you are waiting for, it doesn’t begin after you get everything you want don’t confuse it with death.

Zero to Hero Day 23

Vladimir Kush

Today I wanted to share some prompt sites with you. When I first started at WordPress I didn’t know anyone and prompts are a fun way to meet other talented writers and challenge your own ingenuity.

The Seeker’s Dungeon

http://theseekersdungeon.com/

The Mag

http://magpietales.blogspot.se/

Haiku Heights

http://haiku-heights.blogspot.se/

We Write Poems

http://wewritepoems.wordpress.com/

Imaginary Garden with Real Toads

http://withrealtoads.blogspot.in/

Mad Kane’s Humor Blog

http://www.madkane.com/humor_blog/

Poets United

http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.se/

The Sunday Whirl

http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.se/

We Drink Because We’re Poets

http://wedrinkbecausewerepoets.com/

Poetry Jam

http://poetryjaam.blogspot.se/

Mindlovemisery (which is the prompt I host)

http://mindlovemisery.wordpress.com/

I know there are many others so please feel to share links =)

Zero to Hero Day 21

Had I been able to fulfill Day 19’s assignment today’s challenge would’ve been pretty dull. As usual I am being very liberal in my interpretation of the prompt. On Day 19 I posted a TED talk that Sam had shared with me several days before. On Day 20^th you learned that I am going through a very difficult time right now. Being rejected for a loan was the death of a dream. Our future now is uncertain. Rental apartments are expensive and the price of rentals is projected to escalate substantially. Size-wise we are looking at something very similar to our current apartment only we won’t have that bit of extra storage we have living with relatives. I am depressed, both of us are. At the moment everything feels so hopeless and I just kept bursting into tears knowing that I am the one dragging my family down.

*

On a positive note I did manage to get a change of Neurologists. I have not met with the new doctor yet so I cannot say anything other than I am grateful to have a fresh start. In 2 weeks I am supposed to receive an appointment hopefully it will be soon and I will have the chance to ask about Disability or advocacy/rehabilitative groups that can help me obtain work. I have an appointment in February with a psychologist and I will bring up this topic up for their consideration as well. I suppose my book could be a slamming success, don’t I wish! My book is giving meaning to my life just the same. I am pursuing a dream despite a series of crushing defeats. Aside from my immense love for my family it may be all that is keeping alive. When I am working on my book it is the only time I am not crying. It is the only time I feel a sense of pride and excitement.

*

Watching this video apart from making me cry really inspired me. Her optimism and willingness to accept personal responsibility was a real revelation for me. I see now where I may have went wrong with my former Neurologist. I hope to do things differently with the new doctor and I hope that in doing things differently something will give.

Zero to Hero Day 19

I don’t see any evidence that my theme supports alternative formats. I have, however, used an alternative format before with a previous theme. For today’s post I am going to share a TED talk with you that inspired me so enjoy =)

Zero to Hero Day 9

As I have been with wordpress for a number of years it goes without saying that I am following quite a few blogs! With that said I thought I’d give you a list of 25 blogs to check out =) This list is presented in no particular order and is by no means all-inclusive. I have other favorites as well.

B.G: Bowers

http://bgbowers.com/

Wordifull

http://wordifull.com/

Helena Valentina

http://helenvalentina.com/

Oh Pithy Me

http://abstractorganizedchaosliterally.wordpress.com/

The Sanctuary of My Heart

http://thesanctuaryofmyheart.com/

The Villainess

http://emberyn.com/

laurie27wsmith

http://laurie27wsmith.wordpress.com/

Reading Pleasure

http://readinpleasure.wordpress.com/

scottishmomus

http://scottishmomus.wordpress.com/

Color me in Cyanide and Cherries

http://olorielmoonshadow.wordpress.com/

Sirena Tales

http://sirenatales.wordpress.com/

whocouldknowthen

http://whocouldknowthen.wordpress.com/

MarleneGutschmidt

http://marlenegutschmidt.wordpress.com/

utalapwrx

http://utalapwrx.wordpress.com/

unaware but underlined

http://unawarebutunderlined.wordpress.com/

Wish I Were Here

http://julieriso.wordpress.com/

RichardAnkersWrites

http://richardankerswrites.wordpress.com/

Cindy Knoke

http://cindyknoke.com/

The Seeker’s Dungeon

http://theseekersdungeon.com/

Morpethroad

http://summerstommy.com/

RamblingsFromAMum

http://ramblingsfromamum.wordpress.com/

loveletterstoaghost

http://loveletterstoaghost.wordpress.com/

Currents and Waves

http://stevehi312.wordpress.com/

The Brokedown Pamphlet

http://markrenney1.wordpress.com/

A Beetle With Earrings

http://thepigmentsoflife.wordpress.com/