This year has been a tough one in many ways.  I have been challenged both physically and mentally.  As I put back the pieces of my physical self, I have been forced to also put together the pieces of my spiritual and my mental health.  There is really something to be said about quiet time. When we stop going through our daily routines we are forced to look at all that is around us, even when that is not our intentions. It is absolutely necessary for a truly authentic life.

Living an authentic life should be the goal for us all, because through an authentic life is how we are able to utilize our gifts to better ourselves and the circumstances that surrounds us.   It absolutely amazes me how much there is to learn about who we really are and what we are meant to do.  So many search outside for peace and are not aware that we have already been given the necessary skills to be fulfilled.  We consistently seek immediate gratification in possessions, status, friends and sometimes loved ones.  We often  find ourselves still feeling quite empty inside.  Utilizing this time to really look inside of my heart, soul, and spirit to fill the emptiness that has only grown, has been extremely emotional, but the pieces have  seem to just come together.

Many people stop the process when they feel as though they have made some progress, but depending on your length of life and your experiences throughout that life, the process could take a great deal longer than you would imagine.  It is like peeling back an onion, because you can’t get to the core until you peel back all of the pain, anger, hurt, and belief systems, created by others, that has governed you all of this time. Those belief systems were initially created by your parents, then your teachers, and then all of those in authority in your younger life.  You then go on to live by those belief systems constantly fighting the urges within, especially when your true self is in conflict with what you have been taught.

You ever wonder why you believe  the things that you believe, or why someone that you know have prejudices against others.  Maybe because of their skin color, nationality, religion,  or status in life.   It is because they are governed by a belief system that was imposed on them.  When someone ask you why you believe in something or don’t believe in something and your only answer is because that is how you was raised, which is not an answer by the way.  You don’t even know why you feel that way, you can’t give one reason why that belief works for you.  That is your clue.  I know that my mother was afraid of worms all of my life and I grew up watching and having to respond to her reaction of the sight of a caterpillar. Now I wince at the sight of a worm, but I don’t have any direct experience that would make me afraid.  A worm has never done anything to me, to make me afraid.

My mother is afraid of sick people. If she is somewhere and a person groans from pain, her knees get weak and her first thought is to run, to get away.  That is mostly because she grew up with a mother that was often sick and always called for her when she was sick and delirious from fever.  This is how someone’s life can influence yours.  These are very simple examples, but I think that you may have the idea.

Well for me, the quiet time was due to some health issues, and the process became an extensive one, but the joy that I now feel is overwhelming. I have been able to peel back many layers of this proverbial onion and I recognize me once again.

I encourage young people to explore their true desires and passion because only then can you live an authentic life. When your parents tell you different, you decline with respect to their worries and concerns and still follow your dreams.

There are many movies being made about small towns and a sense of community.  Does this really exist?  I really want to believe that it does exist.  I remember that kind of community in my old neighborhood in Savannah, Georgia.  I have missed that sense of community so much that whenever I dream of my living in a place or →

So many of us start out in life just trying to figure out how  to making a living, but before this start we are never taught how to live.  We go to college  in order to increase our income potential, to secure a better or more powerful position, but we are never taught how to handle the most important jobs →

I am loving my life these days.  Working on my photography and my writing so that I can finally follow my passions.  I have always had several hobbies photography, painting, knitting, sewing, cooking, etc.  I have had to let a few things fall by the wayside, but photography is the one thing that has been consistent since high school.  There →

If someone had told me that life would be so beautiful at fifty, I would have skipped the 20's and 30's.

Whitney boarded the plane today at about 1pm and we are never really too sad when she leaves to go back to school.  This time was not much different.  The difference came for me when I got home and walked through the door and she was not here or was not with me, then I wanted to cry.  I so →

I am about to turn fifty and am really excited about it.  I am once again noticing some major changes in my body.  I have had two major surgeries in the past 6 mos and am about to have another, and I am sure that these surgeries are taking their toll on my body and energy level as well.  Things →

I have a few friends that are on this freedom ride with me, but I realize that there is a great deal of others out there as well.  We are coming to terms with much of what we were taught growing up, acknowledging that it  just doesn't apply these days.  We are also learning how to make and follow our →

What is Cultural diversity? Per Wikipedia, ' There is a general consensus among mainstream anthropologists that humans first emerged in Africa about two million years ago.  Since then they have spread throughout the world, successfully adapting to widely differing conditions and to periodic cataclysmic changes in local and global climate. The many separate societies that emerged around the globe differed →

So often we meet people and fall in love and really don't know much about them at all.  I have been guilty of that as well.  We judge them on how they are in the present and how they treat us during this courtship. But how much do we really know about a person. How long does it take to →