Got FEAR? why it’s valid & why it can’t hold you back.

FEAR, and why it can’t hold you back.

Fear is like quicksand, isn’t it? Once it starts, it won’t stop. It prevents us from searching for truth and asking tough questions; or it keeps us protecting our comfort and paralyzes us from being proactive. Do we ignore it? Funnel it into action? Conquer it with answers or expose it with humor? How do we escape it?

If everyone could agree on one thing about this pandemic is that it has created a lot of fear:

• Fear over finances / lost investments / lost security
• Fear of becoming deathly sick
• Fear for loved ones becoming deathly sick
• Fear of outside circumstances (environment/ law / “ignorant” people), being responsible for whether we receive pay or not, work or not, remain healthy, or not.

 

Let’s talk about why fear is so powerful and how we can drain it until there is no place for it to dictate our lives.

Fear is an emotion, which is powerful because emotions dictate our level of contentment in our day-to-day lives. Often, we ignore emotions and sweep them under the rug. They’re not esteemed like “reason” and “intellect” or “action.”

If anything, negative emotions can be scary, distancing us from loved ones and happiness.

Yet they are necessary, just like how warning signs in your vehicle indicating things like “check engine” or “check brakes” or “refuel” are necessary. They need to be addressed because they are not the problem themselves. Negative emotions point to a deeper issue that can be resolved and return you to a healthier, thriving state of mind.

You may be thinking: Not everything has a fix. It’s impossible to be content when I’m losing everything I’ve worked for. When I could become sick visiting loved ones, but I’m lonely. When loved ones could become sick but I’m not there in the hospital to advocate for them. When I’m going to financial ruin with no bail out. How can I be happy again when what I need is out of my control?

Your fear is valid.

You may believe “if I just do enough research, and enough preparation to prepare for the worst…if I can just hold all these thoughts inside without breaking, I can move on, stronger. I can be more decisive and understanding.”

Or, “I can minimize my fears by ridiculing those who make me feel insecure, and coercing them into changing their behavior to protect myself.”

These are delusions. When you dwell on solutions for problems you have not yet encountered, or problems outside of your control, you are wasting energy. Your energy is feeding into the cycle of fear.

But the threat is real. My gut is screaming it is real, and I know it’s right:

I have reason to fear that if I am coughed on, I will get sick.

 

I have reason to fear extremists mandating vaccines.

 

I have reason to fear extremists turning to guns to attack us.

 

I have reason to fear that New World Order is coming.

 

Yes, of course you have reason to believe the way you do. We are in uncertain times, with “experts” telling us conflicting information. The fear is polarizing, beating down our economy.

The threat is real, but there is no life in the present when your mind is wrapped in the “what ifs” of the future.

You are more than just your mind. You are a physical being. The awareness of your emotions is a powerful tool for grounding yourself.

When you can’t sleep, and the desire for more knowledge, more understanding, more preparedness is overtaking you, here is an exercise to combat fear from Eckhart Toll that I found very helpful.

Try this:

Recognize each fear you have and direct that fear of yours into your hands. This may take a while.

Not working? Close your eyes. Do you know you still have hands even though you can’t see them? Yes, because you feel them. You have energy flowing through your hands.

Despite all the fears you are carrying, your hands can hold them, unchanging. You are breathing. Your heart is beating. You can rotate your wrists, you can rotate your ankles. You are not crumbling under the weight of the fear, you are functioning.

You are complete, right now, as you are. You are a miracle, living against the laws of physics that everything leads to chaos and decay. You are incredible! You are beating the odds already, just by taking that next breath. You are fully equipped with everything you need to function in life. You are fearfully and wonderfully made, lacking no good thing. Decay is normal; life is not. You are already winning.

Nothing you need is out of your reach. You need connection? Love? Security? Freedom? You have it. You are created by design, fully equipped, by a (what I believe) fully capable and perfect Creator who loves you and wants what is best for you, with better plans for you than you have for yourself.

You are already fully equipped to be content right this moment, also stocked with positive emotions inside, correlating to experiences you’ve had that you associate with them.

Do you want more freedom?

When do you feel freedom? When you eat what you want to eat? When you walk your dog? When you put on clothes you want to wear? The more aware you are that you have what need, then the more gratitude dictates your life.

Gratitude is the strongest form of abundance. It happens when your mind connects to the joy and love you’ve experienced in your life and you combine it with the satisfaction you have in this present moment.

Grief can keep you stuck in the past. Worry can keep you stuck in the future. But when you accept that your past is just a story, something you can put down; and your future is just imagined, you are left with your present—the right now. It’s right now, in this moment, where your mind and heart and body are all present, working harmoniously.

You are a miracle, a rockstar, you can handle anything in the present—and if you can’t, God can. He is the mechanic and designer and fix-all to not just your emotions but your physical and mental happenings founding your emotions. Because you are a creation with access to the creator—anytime you want.

I know that to some, this post sounds Buddhist or some kinda wonky flavor of spirituality, which is fine. I do believe spirituality is a far cry from the confinements of religion and God is more powerful than we can ever give him credit for. I do believe the more you learn about the God I know (demonstrated by Jesus), the less you’ll be disappointed and the more hope you will have in this life and the next.

If you want to know more about my faith and Christianity, please message me and ask. I love sharing hope, but I’m less about preaching and more about empowerment. Also, we could have opposite fears and beliefs, but you don’t have to worry about me disliking you. My respect for you doesn’t depend on your opinions.

My faith starts with my belief that God loves us before we loved him; how he sacrificed himself to conquer fear and death; and how the world is bad but despite all these things, victory is possible through Christ, who loves us. It’s not about being good, it about knowing and then believing who is good & perfect—who is Love, and knowing he’s got our back.

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears punishment is not made perfect in love.” –1 john 4:18, NIV.

Moral of the story? Yeah, the world is a bad place. But we have access to the one who has overcome the world (find John 16:33, NIV). Let go, be present; know you are complete and equipped with everything you need to be content right now.

Confessions of a Recovering(ish) Conspiracy Theorist

The turn of recent events have caused a lot of chaos, confusion, and “red flags” in peoples minds: whether it be worry about the guy in a Hazmat suit buying all the toilet paper, or worry that you’ll run out of toilet paper and the very air your breathe could be a weapon any moment.

The virus COVID-19, at the very least, has pushed “pause” on our economy in a way that many of us have not experienced in our lifetime. (Stop here and take a deep breath. We are SO VERY FORTUNATE. Man oh man, we’ve had it good!)

This has us scouring the news for answers to the questions we had. Some people searched deeper and deeper, trying to find the answers.

Time magazine has said that nearly half of the U.S. population believes in Conspiracy Theories, yet the topic remains taboo. It skims by in private groups and forums, stays in whispers.

I believe this is because of skepticism. People are skeptical of the conclusions they are drawing from research; they are isolated and written off if they don’t communicate carefully; they are skeptical of the sources available to them in the first place.

It becomes a very isolated, scary place to be.

So let’s rip this open and dive in!

First: what is a Conspiracy theory? The one-line definition is this: a belief that some covert but influential organization is responsible for a circumstance or event. Rational Wiki has a much more expanded definition.

Who are the people susceptible to Conspiracy Theories?

I used to think people susceptible to Conspiracy Theories were people who “believed everything they heard;” had some sort of “paranoia” or went way too deep down a rabbit hole with laser-beam focus.

Then I witnessed a loved-one’s logical and rational and scientific-driven mind lead into “Conspiracy Theory.”

My own reaction was this: ignoring the ideas. Then questioning the ideas; researching on my own; refuting her ideas; then her having answers to many of my questions more thoroughly than sources I’d found. Before I knew it, I was a believer too. Here is more about that: Conspiracy? or Corruption?

Why? People believe where the answers lead. It’s just like in the court system. Despite what the truth is, the verdict always goes where the most compelling evidence leads.

Unfortunately, does this make it true? Not necessarily.

The more I research, the less I know.

Which of course, as someone who struggle with Conspiracy Theories, makes me wary of repetitive claims such as “We have COVID-19 tests for everyone,” that are not backed by proof. We have multiple health care workers reporting shortages and vloggers recording their phone conversations with the CDC who admit to not knowing about specific test availability. #wherearethetests

We hear one thing, we experience another. We search for answers, we find more questions.

Real life is not like the movie Contagion. There is not always a known beginning and end. There is not always one solution to a problem. Not all independent journalists are greedy for popularity or concrete answers. People aren’t going to reject a solution if it can be proven beyond doubts to be better than the alternative. However, some aspects of Contagion ring true: The rush for a solution is both brave and dangerous. Military law and repressed freedom of speech scare the crap out of people. Pandemics can cause a great political divide and collapse the economy.

I believe that anyone who claims to know the full narrative is prioritizing fiction over facts. In real life, full stories often only happen in history, not the present.

Most chaos has a “time will tell” answer until we gain clarity and sort information as it becomes the past. I often think if I lived during WWII, I would have for sure thought Hitler was the Anti-Christ and it was the end of the world. I also would have thought people being exterminated was Conspiracy Theory. If I worked as a Radium Girl, I would have been licking the brush alongside everyone else.

Until recently, I believed freedom of speech kept major companies to high standards, but then I watched the movie about Edward Snowden and then there are whistleblowers revealing the hard evidence of incriminating data and or censored information. The more I read about the crazy experiments done in the name of “science” in history, the more I’m not surprised about movies such as Erin Brockovich and Dark Waters telling the stories of cases against large companies that took years and years to complete. History seems to say: where the money is, the power is.

With lack of inadequate testing and information, there are no answers. Without proper data collection and information…will the full story ever be known? Because of this confusion from improper data collection and questionable sources in charge of the narrative, the confusion seems insurmountable to clear up (at best maybe just buried and forgotten).

That’s why it’s important to play it safe by staying home during quarantine times; but also to address questions and hold companies accountable for the progress they are making toward solutions.

More than ever, this is a time to embrace freedom of speech, anti-bullying, and a mindset of gratitude. So be kind to one another. Ask questions; listen; reassure. We need to come together at this time for moral support.

While evidence is insufficient, no questions are stupid.

& for goodness sake, check in on your Conspiracy-Theorist friends!

C o n s p i r a c y ? …or corruption?

 

Categorize me how you’d like, but this is my train of thinking right now:

Event 201 is a global initiative that collaborated on what to do in a Pandemic. Health leaders met October 18^th, 2019 in the USA. The Military World Games was held in Wuhan Oct. 17-28^th  with nearly 10,000 athletes from over 100 countries competing in 27 sports.  Simultaneously October 2019 was a record-setting month…before January 2020 for Chief officers and CEOs stepping down:

“The number of U.S. chief executive officers who lost or left their jobs in January set a monthly record of 219, more than any other month since outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas began tracking the data in 2002. The previous record was 172 departures in October of last year.

The January total was 39.5% higher year over year, and the month-over-month total was 37% higher than December’s total of 160. The fourth-quarter 2019 total reached an all-time record 480. The January number is already nearly half that record total.

In all of 2019, a total of 1,640 CEOs left their jobs, a surge of nearly 13% from the prior year’s total of 1,452. Of the 2019 total, three were due to allegations of sexual misconduct. In 2018, 11 CEOs left their jobs following allegations of sexual misconduct.”

Then there is this foreshadowing Agenda signed in back in 2016:

Regardless of whether it was manmade (as people have wondered, since we know we have had this science to do so since 2016) or intentional, this pandemic is now considered a blueprint for bioterrorism, the “poor man’s nuclear weapon.”

Why were outbreaks of HINI and SARS not effecting us the same way? Well Pneumonia-type illnesses are faster spreading. The contagion level is dangerous.

There is speculation about Pandemics with unseen symptoms and/or the mandatory precautions against them. Let me be clear: there are no answers, just speculation.

Before this pandemic, there was a cry for better testing, better consent forms, better long-term testing, and continual improvement and transparency for preventative medications. We should not be in a war of “Vaccinate” or “don’t vaccinate.” This is more important than that:

“Unless we put Medical Freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship…the constitution of the republic should make a special privilege for medical freedoms as well as religious freedom.” –Dr. Benjamin Rush, Revolutionary War Hero, Signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Facts to consider as the fight for Medical Freedom heats up due to the current outbreak:

$57.5 billion dollars, the total expenditure by the U.S. pharmaceutical industry on promotional activities in a single year compared to $31.5 billion on Research &Development. –source

“CDC, frankly, is a vaccine company; it owns 56 vaccine patents  and buys and distributes $4.6 billion in vaccines annually through the Vaccines for Children program, which is over 40% of its total budget. Further, Pharma directly funds, populates and controls dozens of CDC programs through the CDC foundation.  A British Medical Journal editorial excoriates CDC’s sweetheart relationship with pharma quotes UCLA Professor of Medicine Jerome R. Hoffman “most of us were shocked to learn the CDC takes funding from industry… It is outrageous that industry is apparently allowed to punish the CDC if the agency conducts research that has potential to cut into profits.”

HHS partners with vaccine makers to develop, approve, recommend, and pass mandates for new products and then shares profits from vaccine sales. HHS employees can personally collect up to $150,000 annually in royalties for products they work on. For example, key HHS officials collect money on every sale of Merck’s controversial HPV vaccine Gardasil, which also yields tens of millions annually for the agency in patent royalties. Furthermore, under the 1986 Act that created the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, HHS is the defendant in Vaccine Court and is legally obligated to defend against any claim that a vaccine causes injury. Despite high hurdles for recovery, HHS pays out hundreds of millions of dollars annually (over $4 billion total) to Americans injured by vaccines.” According to ChildrensHealthDefense.org,

$225,457,657.94 in 2019 alone was paid in court cases due to vaccine injury. Here is the official report. There is a push to protect the immuno-compromised, yet the vaccine-injured patients being marginalized, ignored, silenced.

Due to missing safety studies backing their claims, ICAN sued the CDC for missing safety reports that should be available to the public.

Medical Exemptions for opting out of vaccines are NOT determined by doctors. Although a doctor recommendation is required, they are determined by the state board of health and are granted only if their own prescribed solutions are used, as seen in this case of a Mother needing to chose between expensive chemotherapy and public school for her vaccine-injured child (vaccine resulted in Rhumatoid Arthritis) or homeschooling and treating that child with a whole-foods based diet (that proved successful).

Religious/philosophical exemptions (those who believe their methods of immunity and/or natural bodies created by intelligent design or sophisticated evolution are superior to vaccines) are under siege due to herd immunity. This right was taken away in California, New York, West Virginia, and Mississippi.

Herd immunity for vaccines, according to vaccine inserts themselves is not effective in preventing the spread of coughing-related illnesses even though they are continued to be mandatory.

There is no allergy testing or MTHFR gene testing before vaccines are given, and no required follow up to see if the body is doing well with those prescribed medicines (like there is with all other prescription medicine made to treat patients).

Schools and daycares require full vaccination for enrollment despite potential allergies to specific vaccines or desires to opt out of non-life-threatening diseases such as STD preventative vaccines given to babies. Children who die within hours of a vaccine have their cause of death written off as “SIDS:Sudden Infant Death Syndrome” without any correlation to the vaccine being taken into account.

I’m going to be very blunt. A pneumonia pandemic would be a scenario to push mandated vaccines because mandated vaccines would give communities peace of mind to keep the economy moving. Mandatory vaccines are allowed during a Pandemic if in a “State of Emergency”. Also, enforced social distancing is an option through location tracking.

Not to increase fear, but to say what many people are thinking.  If we didn’t believe history to repeat itself ( ww2 “Medication”, anyone?); and we knew science could stay pure (scientists who discovered atomic energy petitioned for it not to be used on people); if companies weren’t so large they were untouchable; and if there wasn’t a desperation for conserving planet Earth (quality>quanitity), there would be less concern. Let’s face it, the world is a wonderful but also a scary place.

Share if you agree. Please, respond with sources that discredit cited information with more comprehensive data that I may have misinterpreted. Thank you for reading.

Valentine

If you’re walking in love, you don’t have to fear never finding it.

You can’t rush it

Or fall into it.

You must become fertile—tenderhearted,

So that when the seeds are

sown,

naturally,

they will grow into

life giving substance & reproduce.

Who are your farmers?

Who is your sun, your rain?

Until you find who provides you stable growing conditions,

You must not settle.

Don’t be so anxious for the seed when you are still cracked dry.

Naivety

 

 

 

 

 

We rolled the dice, assuming

they would match.

 

Moving hands

of clocks and heirloom watches,

implications of forever.

Grandmother’s  china

once adorning family tables, betrothed to this sturdy structure,

a product of long-term teamwork, adventures,

promises.

 

Tons of hard work and pride, placed

on this Atlantic body,

that we had never fully known in the first place.

 

We cruise

until, several hundred miles out,

the tip of the iceberg makes my mind suspicious

 

yet we remain optimistic.

There was no other way.

 

Then we hit.

 

The whole ship

sunk into an abyss,

never to be replicated,

 

preserving only symbols of time and security,

things we valued that

turned out not to matter.

 

Hard work that did not pay off after all.

The weight of Infatuation

Our heart is a stack of bricks, we hand back and forth,

a pulsing, unintentional rhythm, paced to build

a cozy home, or a retaining wall.

*

Face to face, we sit, clutching

generic porcelain mugs,

marking our bodies like price tags.

*

We share a triangle pastry

blotched in red corn syrup

which we agree is fruit.

To love God is to love each other, you say,

ripping a piece to save.

I bite in a corner to taste,

Loving each other means loving God?

*

We leave, satisfied by starch,

thoughtless about the crumb trail we leave behind.

*

Fasten seatbelts, prepare

for separate houses.

Busy crossroads tiring rubber, friction. Yellow,

again.

*

Is it time or intention that makes green? Design?

*

Staring at the stop sign, shift

in your passenger seat, feel

yourself stick, suspended

by his sedan.

Night after night

*

Orion’s belt

suspends

stiff yellow bodies

*

holding the heat of space.

Disconnection

The way a dandelion appears to die,

then releases a seed

to float and begin again.

*

How skin, so soft,

steers us to bondage,

the confines of our own curiosity

and separateness.

*

How we walk along,

loved by everything divine,

oblivious.

*

How we handle such cycles

without wearing thin.

Let Ride

Stones

*****

We are souls, poured,

then frozen into the cracks

of coffee shops,

Chiseled free through our scribblings,

  thin and cracking confessions.

*

The girl in the tight, window-case dress

speaks above the folk-style band,

into her cell,

I’m at Kristen’s bad party,

while I listen, content in my jeans by the fire.

*

Public radio taught me that

trash, once alienated

from recyclables , collides

in a shared space,

for all things used,

*

despite our discernment.

*

Our theory of decay translates into

a lengthy process, a journey.

After twenty-five years,

plastic still protects guacamole,

 next to legible newspaper that your grandfather recycled,

cigarette burn still distinct.

*

Our  inheritance.

*

Yet water still filters itself through rocks and hills,

it moves and purifies.

*

Do washed-up shells with hollow sound

and scattered shine, gain value

only in your palm,

or upon your toilet tank?

*

From the shoreline where we dabble and yearn,

choose to skip me,

*

in this body of mystery.

Return me to where I belong,

a pebble,

beneath waves

and stars.

I relocated…to a closet.

entry way and walk-in closet on the right

I moved into a closet.

Not the Harry Potter kind, but the “I’m-living-in-the-big-city” kind. Once I found out I was accepted at the very chic, vintage job on Grand Avenue, I snabbed a 300 sq. ft efficiency.

Why? I love walking to work…and I’m cheap. I told a client I was moving to an efficiency, rarely driving my ’94 vehicle because I was cheap, and he corrected me: “You’re not cheap. You’re responsible.”

Yes, responsible.  I like that.

A friend told me he lived in an efficiency once.

“That’s great!” I said, “what advice do you have for me?”

I was beginning the packing process, which is similar to being stranded on a ship and choosing about three things to take with you.

His advice? “Move out.”

Me: “just signed the 1 year lease.”

Him: “Don’t have any full-size couches.”

Me: “That’s what I sleep on at night.” (No worries, it’s a hide-a-bed couch)

Sigh.

It’s an odd time to move, the week of Christmas, when you’re ending a job you’ve had for a fifth of your life and beginning a new one, as you’re wrapping up Christmas shopping and gifts for the season. Thanks to the lack of ice and my stress adrenaline pumping, the move was pretty smooth…besides the fact that three weeks later I still have no coffee for my coffee maker.  Then again, Caribou, Starbucks, Café Latte, Bread and Chocolate, and Brueggers are within a 3 minute walk from me—and these places have internet, unlike my apartment.

Also, I have no television, and I don’t want one.

No, I am not accepting Amish friendship bread at this time.

My freezer and cupboards are well stocked (especially with chocolate, thanks to Christmas!) because I live near Trader Joes and a connection to Costco through my best friends. I also have a well-stocked wine table…not to say I have wine. In the wine compartments of my table: Pam cooking Spray, Olive oil, Gummy Vitamins, Lemon juice.

Other quirks in my apartment include:

1) My ceiling fan looks like the claw in a vending machine, it’s so wilted.

2) My bathroom mirror can reflect my eyes and above.

3) My refrigerator sounds exactly like a stomach gurgling.

4) “Low” on my Space heater resembles a partially cloudy day in the desert.  Have I mentioned that I dream about bringing my humidifier to my apartment? Literally, I dream this.

So my plan of attack for moving in, was to move in as though staying on a two week vacation: bring what I really need and then bring in other things as I need them. But let’s be honest, when you’re packing a car and making multiple trips, you want to pack as many things as possible that you can.

Despite this, thanks to my recent bouts of deep cleaning, things turned out alright. I rather enjoy my space now, and can’t wait to hang artwork on the walls and organize that last cabinet of papers and office supplies.

I don’t like reading. Cure me!

I have a confession.

Recently, I organized a book club to meet with NWC friends and keep reading. I knew I needed accountability.

As an English student, and student of life (hahaha), I know reading is an essential tool for a full life. It is a way to explore and learn about paths and options to take in life. It’s a way to avoid the “hard way” of learning while gaining more depth on topics than one could muster from his or her own life. It’s about sharing experiences and teaching, about sorting truth from lies, logic from…non logic. It makes me better at Scrabble. I’m not up-to-date enough to have a smart phone with Words with Friends.

I even dream about reading to my kids today and avoid reading (like Harry Potter) arguing that I’ll read them when I have kids…

But when I pick up a book on a hot afternoon to escape the heat, I get an urge to go for a run. When I try to knit as I read, I suddenly gain an intense focus on my knitting to see if I can discover a new pattern for a few rows. I could read at night to calm my mind, but why not problem solve my real problems and calculate my average income I make on commission-based work one more time? I could spend some time in a bookstore–but Michael’s is always having canvas sales. Then after a few chapters, I want to give my eyes a break. I want them to span distances–something majestic, tangible, real to me.

I don’t enjoy reading.

I enjoy gaining information, stories, the depth of knowledge coming from reading. I enjoy the smell and look of books and even book bags. But I can’t stand dropping all hobbies just to read.

This is very bad. Especially for one who graduated with an English degree.

It wasn’t always like this. I don’t remember a single math class in highschool that I didn’t read other fiction books during. By sixth grade, I had read all of the American Girl, Anne of Green Gable, and Babysitter club books. I couldn’t read enough!

Since then, my tastes have matured. No–I don’t dig into Shakespeare, Bronte, or even Tolstoy much. I discovered that I like “muti-ethnic” literature and many memoirs–which may not have appealed to me had I not taken classes on them.

There’s just something about the syntax in some books that makes me itch. Or the dialogue was read twice because of absent tags. Or I begin to count adverbs or how many paragraphs start with the same word. Then some characters become flat and boring.

Perhaps I have an editing bug.

Perhaps I have an addiction to working with my hands.

Is there a cure to better reading habits??

What’s worse? The few good books that did manage to consume me have spoiled me for movies. I am disappointed with nearly every new release movie or TV show I watch. Chick flicks are lame. Even movies based of books–like Twilight–fall short. Very short. There is no character development anymore.

What am I to do? Jog up to a hill and knit?