Farmer Life

Being a farmer is hard on the body.

Last year was my first year farming. I wasn't even farming the whole time. I had field trips and class days that were spent sitting around and relaxing. 

But I still managed to hurt myself. 

I pushed myself pretty hard every time I was doing something physical, and not really balancing it out with some stretches or Yoga or anything to help my muscles heal.

Now that I'm doing even harder and more repetitive work, I've hurt myself again.

I went to a massage therapist today for the first time. It was great!

She didn't fix me, but helped me a lot, and I'll have to go back a few more times for sure.

It's just my first year, so I know it'll get better.

And I'm strong, and determined!

Between Cultures

I didn't realize how much my time in Korea actually affected my approach to life.

I have so many different perspectives on how to live.

But what was a given in Korea does not apply here.

Reputation and qualifications where important in Korea, but marketing yourself is more important here.

There was so much colour and brightness.

Cat Memories

I saw this on Facebook as well today. It brought back memories of a long time ago. 

Changing Negative to Positive

I found this image on a Facebook page I follow called "Word Porn". I don't seem to get a lot of their stuff in my news feed very often anymore, so I was surprised when I saw this and remembered the site... Well, this is what it said: 

I just had this very same realization today. I've made it my New Years Resolution actually. 

It's easy to understand beauty in people as authenticity, but it's something difficult to do. 

At least for me. But that doesn't mean people who are not able to do that are not beautiful.

I know it's within me, because I've felt it. Not with a lot of people, and that's something I want to understand and work on. 

The understanding that we are beautiful, and worthy of our dreams and aspirations grows our self-value and therefore our confidence. That's when we become even more authentic and this whole cycle continues.

This is changing the negative spiral to a positive spiral. 

New Years Resolution

2015

Try to be myself more in life #oneDayAtATime. 

That takes confidence and vulnerability. I don't have the confidence, and I'm scared of being vulnerable. 

These are the lessons I want to learn this year, and until I get there...
 #fakeItTillYouMakeIt. #happyUnderstandings. 

TED Video - Vulnerability

On the up

So, I've surprised myself and gotten quite a few things done off of my ToDo list.

Mood is better,

Accomplishing some things,

Learning more about myself,

Understanding more about my life.

Authenticity and Reclaiming Yourself

I follow this fantastic and inspirational blog called "Rebelle Society" blog, and I just read a great post from Steven R. O'Brien that just spoke to me.

It's called:

claim your authenticity: set yourself free.

and totally fits in with what I'm going through at this time in my life. Here is this great piece of writing.

I have never just been me, the authentic Me. The Me with no added sugar or artificial coloring.

I have always thrown in extra ingredients to be more palatable, more pleasing. Or worse, I have chopped myself into pieces. I would then take the piece I felt was best suited to the occasion and place it on display. Sprinkle some false bravado or charm on top, as needed, and serve myself up cold.

I always picked the piece I felt would be the most valued. The piece that would garner me the most praise or love or sex or whatever it was I was seeking in the moment, that I felt would make me feel whole, wanted. I have lived my life by fractions, tiny fractions of my true self.

I am no longer choosing to do this. I now aspire to be all of me, the profane, the sacred, the twisted, the glorious and everything in between. It is time, time to lay down all my armor. It has grown so, so heavy, and truth be told, it has never shined.

The person hiding inside this walking prison is not a knight. No, far from it, he is a scared little boy, too afraid to claim all that he is, all that he came here to be.

Yes, it’s time for this armor to come off, piece by blessed piece.

It’s time to let go of all the self-hatred, all the self-judgment, all the I’m not fucking good enough.

Time to release all the people-pleasing, all the co-dependence, all the fear of abandonment.

Time to set free all the vengeance in my heart and dishonesty on my lips. Oh yeah, it’s time. It’s time to stand in all that I am.

Stand in all my sexy, all my kooky, all my bad motherfuckerness.

Stand in all my lovely, all my frailty, all my deviance.

Stand in all my magic, all my incompleteness, all my devotion.

Stand in all my juju, all my ridiculousness, all my awe for you, for me, for life.

And when I get afraid, so afraid that I want to wrench the covers over my life and hit the snooze button for all eternity, I will not climb back into my armor. No. I will reach for your hand. I will slide your hand into mine and clasp it to my heart and tell you I am terrified.

I will grant you an all-access pass to the greatest show on earth, my raw, vulnerable, lovely, authentic self, and in so doing I shall set us free.

I will listen with all my love to all of your terror, all your rage, all your disappointment, and we shall dance in unity and sway with intimacy and laugh in truth.

Yes, it’s time. It’s time because a life lived in fractions is no life at all. I have decided to add up all of my pieces, all of the pieces of Me, and guess what?

They all equal a whole number. One single, indivisible, glorious number.

Moving on!

OK, so I'm going to stop feeling down, and responsible.

That doesn't really help with anything, just with stopping me from getting on with my life.

I feel like there are definite stages in a breakup... disbelief, anger, resentment, guilt, depression, freedom, empowerment, and in the end wisdom and growth.

I'm definitely at the last couple of stages of this process.

I've also learned a lot from thinking about this an analyzing the situation and myself over the past month.

I still have a lot to learn about myself, about how to be honest with myself, how to stand firm for what I value and to speak up when I don't agree with something. How to read the signs of incompatibility, and understand how the other persons behaviour is not necessarily always related to me.

Big lessons... hard lessons... but necessary.

Breakups Suck!

We weren't together for a long time... officially two and a half months, but we were talking for maybe a month or so before that.

But we were both interested in a long term relationship.

It turned out that I was more ready for a relationship that he was... and so work took over his life and pushed me to the sidelines. I had no options but to break up.

This was really difficult since I was looking at it as a long term investment, but I can't imagine breaking up with someone after a few years of being together and trying to make it work and investing so much time and energy and so many emotions into it. That's gotta be painful and confusing and demoralizing.

At first I thought I had done something wrong, and obviously I was obsessing about figuring out what happened. And then I realized, I hadn't done anything wrong. I was myself, and it was him who chose not to give this relationship the time it needed.

But it still hurts.
I feel hurt and more alone than before.

Confidence is down...
Self worth is down...
Motivation is down...

And my body is feeling it too...

Immune system is down...
Energy is down...

Feeling of attractiveness is down...

I know this is not going to last forever, and it's going to pass soon... it just sucks at the moment.

Plan

I don't feel the passion because I'm working for someone else.

I want to know everything about what I'm doing... the task: why I'm doing it, how to do it well, what happens in that process, details about the process and what I enjoy most, what's most profitable, and easiest to do with the resources I have at that time.

I need to spend one year making some serious money, then rent some land, buy some tools, seeds, bigger car, and start growing to see if I can make some money at it. 

Hopefully buy land soon after that, 1 or 2 acres, and then plant some perennials, some trees, and design it so it's accessible, intensive, organized, but beautiful.

After one more year of learning, and strengthening, then Korea or something equally profitable.