teclo

There was already a journal entry tonight, but it said nothing, it meant nothing, this one ... this one means something.

I will preface this by saying that I feel ridiculous by saying that I am taking any life direction and advice from a reality TV show, but that is just the case. It took a contestant on a reality TV show to make me realize something about myself, and about who I am and what I try to do. I will not deny this, I will not deny that newness and revelation will come at the simplest and most unthought of times and from the same sort of unexpected and seemingly ridiculous sources.

My boyfriend and I DVR'd the last episode of Mad Mad House on my birthday. We watched it tonight.

One of the contestants said that she would no longer accept any mediocrity in her life. Whether or not this was said in earnest, and said with conviction, it hit me right square in the heart center.

I realize that I have been coasting through much of my adult life and much of my beliefs and the like. That I have been a culprit (I wanted to type "victim" but that would mean that I am placing the blame on factors other than myself, and that is not what I mean to say here) of coasting by on my own laurels, of living in mediocrity, of not trying, of not caring.

This has to stop. Now.

I will throw myself into my yoga practice. I will do the things I need to do in my life in order to reach the direction in which I want to go. I will meditate for the next week on what I want to be in my life, on where I want to be in the future.

Tonight, after my yoga practice, I did a heart meditation, asking my heart what it wanted above all else.

My heart said: "Love. Sunshine."

In my shavasana, I concentrated on breath associated with feelings of love and sunshine. I realize that I want to be a bright soul, I want to be a loved and loving soul. I will try to banish feelings of ill will, or cut out those factors in my life which bring me nothing but pain. I will cleanse my being of experiences, thoughts, actions, and words of mine and others that contradict this goal.

I will become the loving, caring, being of light that I am capable of making myself. I will throw myself first and foremost into the people that I love: my boyfriend, my family, my friends, my coworkers, the people who help me every day. I will try to end every interaction by making each person feel brighter and more loved in this world than before they talked to me. I will not place this action upon myself as me being the source of love and sunshine, but instead making themselves feel the love and sunshine around them.

This may seem like propaganda or "hippie bullshit" to some people. And, before practicing yoga, and engaging in meditation, I might have believed the same things myself.

Yes, I will still become angry at certain goings on in this world that I may not agree with. Instead of being a doomsayer and saying that I have no input on this, I will continue my crusade of getting people to the voting booths in November, of continuing to make people open their minds to the information that is out there which might not be blatantly obvious. I will try to be a source of education to those who may not understand exactly against what they may stand.

In order to bring love and sunshine (light) into this world, I must be composed, and full of those elements myself. I must look for the qualities of good in every person I come in contact with every day. I must teach the person to follow those qualities, rather than the negativity which resides within them.

I must be a teacher, not a naysayer.