personal growth – Young, Mixed, and Scholarly

Anger

I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but I owe much of my growth to my break-up from several months ago. I experienced a large amount of anger and sadness for longer than I intended, but that experience made me a stronger person. I underwent a lot of self-reflection and I reached an all-time-low, which only prompted myself to work towards an all-time-high. While I was very sad, most of what I felt was anger. Even in other past experiences that have caused me emotional distress, I mostly felt anger. I was angry at the world for allowing such a thing to happen at me. I was angry at the person or thing for hurting me. I was angry at myself for allowing myself to hurt. I was constantly angry. I knew that I needed to change and I worked hard to reach that change…which is definitely easier said than done. I am still working on myself and I will be working on myself until my last breath. I would like to share my thought process on anger and how to be a less angry person.

It all starts with recognizing that you are angry. You need to be aware of yourself and of your feelings. You cannot deny anger. Even look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself, “I am angry. […] made me angry. I feel anger.” It sounds silly, but confronting yourself face-to-face is very powerful. When you recognize that you are angry, breathe in and absorb ALL of that anger and your angry thoughts for either one deep breath in or several breaths in and then when you exhale, release that anger until you feel a sense of calmness. Next you need to realize that anger never got anyone anywhere good. I met a wise man this past weekend on October 5th, 2019 at my close friend, Kavishka’s, “Dandiya Night,” and he told me something that stayed with me. He said that, “anger is self-punishment for the stupidity of others.” When you are angry, those emotions and the feelings you get hurt yourself. Yes, you may act on those emotions and do something to hurt another person, but that is separate issue because although you are completely responsible for your actions, others are also partially responsible for their reactions. We are focusing on you right now and the way your actions influence you.

How exactly is anger self-punishment? When you are angry you are filled with negative thoughts and energy. Those thoughts and energy control just about everything. If you have a negative thought that turns into a negative action, which turns into a negative response, which turns into a negative event, which creates a negative environment and so on and so forth. One small sliver of negativity has enough power to destroy the entire world and it is up to us, as individuals, to rid of that negativity. You have to turn the bad into good or else you will never survive. You have to realize that the past is over with and nothing will change it. You have to realize that the future is coming, but you cannot dwell on an event that hasn’t occurred. You have to set yourself in the present moment and tell yourself that you are where you are supposed to be. You have to tell yourself that everything is okay, because in all reality it is.

I know that people can really just piss us all off sometimes. And sometimes, even if we work on controlling anger, we can slip up and let it consume us for a little longer than it should. Stupidity, unfortunately, is inevitable; but, how we respond is completely up to us. It is a process that will take time. And this process isn’t a full circle, it is rather a wave that continues on forever, but the wavelengths between our negative reactions (the crests and troughs) get further and further apart. But if you commit yourself to yourself then you can have growth. Let people be mad. Let people be negative. But fight like hell to protect yourself from that negative energy. Don’t beat yourself up if you do slip-up because mistakes will happen, but if there is truly good intention that surrounds them, then that is okay. Take a few deep breaths in and out and just literally tell yourself, out loud, that everything will be okay. Tell yourself that you are stronger than this inconvenience. Tell yourself that you will get past this. Tell yourself that nothing and no one is worth anger that will only end up hurting you more than anyone else.

Once you begin this journey you will recognize a less angry life for yourself. You may even recognize good starting to come your way. Positive energy is like a bright light to a moth in a dark room. Attraction is strong and it starts off subtle and then all of a sudden you are surrounded by abundance. Take care of yourself. You are worth the effort. It only seems like a lot of effort at first, but then self-love just becomes leg-work the more you do it. Look in the mirror everyday and tell yourself that you are worth it because you are. You do not need to feel anger, your soul is far too beautiful to be surrounded by such an energy. Carry on with love and love will come.

My First Reiki Cleansing…

I decided to make my journey to Awaken2Spirit in Davenport, IA for an 80-minute reiki cleansing because I felt as if a force was guiding me to seek help. Recently, I have been under a lot of mental strain and I have felt an intense amount of negative energy surrounding my mind, body, and my soul. This is my experience.

Before the Process

As I communicated with the lovely reiki healer about what was going on in my life, she opened my mind to interpret reality in a different way than what I was currently doing. I told her of my recent heartbreak and the pain that it had caused me to feel deep within my chest. I told her of the intense anxiety that I had been feeling, both from the heartbreak and the drastic change of living arrangements I was experiencing. I told her of the anxiety-driven panic attacks that I was experiencing that would start off as a pain in my chest and turn into a harsh cry followed by the frightening moments of hyperventilation and body tingling. I told her how I felt lonely in this world at times and that I find myself constantly overthinking about everything that occurs in my life—only causing myself more anxiety. The one thing that I was initially surprised about was the level of comfort I felt around her from the moment I met her. I felt the freedom to tell her my rawest emotions without any second thoughts. I know, and I know she knows, that she was meant to be a healer. Her energy was calming, and I felt as if I had known her for my entire life. After I told her of my current troubles, she began to teach me a new way of thinking.

Starting with the break-up, she looked me in the eye and told me that, “sometimes when you get the things you want, you have to lose them because they aren’t what you need,” and that is a thought that truly opened my eyes. She went on to tell me how there is no such thing as a loss, only a lesson. This is ironic because a very wise friend that I have stands by that mentality firmly and has told me that several times. As she told me that and as I reflected on the words of my wise friend, I began to think about the relationship and the way it ended and what lessons could have possibly arose from the entire situation. I reached a point where I finally saw the lesson that was meant to be learned. I will not go into the private details of the relationship, but if there is one thing that I gained and learned is that one should always: trust their intuition. This is something I struggle with because I tend to make decisions based on the frequently unstable emotions that I experience, rather than the deep feelings in the innermost parts of my mind that I actively choose to ignore because most of the time it is a harsh truth that I refuse to accept, even though in the end it is what my soul needs to thrive. Hearing these words of advice from my friend and then from the reiki healer has pushed my mind to decide to live by that mentality.

As for moving to a new city and coping with the stress of building a new life, she told me to look towards the supreme beings that guard my soul and ask them for help at times. By this, she does not just mean pray to religious beings; by this, she also meant to ask the angels and archangels that surround us all to look over my soul and help myself find the right direction. She told me to dig deep within my soul and to find my voice and to discover my true self and then to embrace that true self regardless of what those around me have to say. I internalized her words and I made a promise to myself that I am going to put my all into myself because I am worth it.

She ended the conversation by communicating with me methods that I can use outside of reiki healing to keep my energies (or chakras) opened and aligned. She spoke on meditation, the usage of crystals, essential oils, and yoga. Although I did have some prior knowledge of a variety of the mentioned methods, she only deepened my knowledge and expanded my mind further. At the conclusion of our conversation, she smudged my entire being with sage and led me into her room that is free of all negative energy.

During

Now, I will not tell of the methods that she used, as my eyes were covered and my mind was not focused on her movements; rather, I will tell what I felt. Please note that what I feel may not be what you will feel, and you should approach every type of cleansing with an open mind and no expectations. This is merely my sharing of my personal experience.

At first, as I was doing some deep breathing, I felt my body relax and I felt my mind quiet. As she continued her process, I began to feel nothing at all. I had been holding crystals in the palms of both of my closed hands, but I recognized that I could neither feel myself holding them anymore nor feel the tension of my closed hand. I would have to say that I felt paralyzed. I could not feel the blanket that was covering my feet and I could not feel the cloth that was covering my eyes. This was not an alarming feeling of numbness—it was completely calming. I felt at ease. Nothing mattered. Everything was okay. I simply accepted the feeling and allowed myself to continue feeling it.

I felt like this for most of the healing session. However, when she placed the crystal, citrine, on my solar plexus (which is the chakra near the abdominal area) I felt a throbbing sensation. It was not painful, but I noticed it as soon as she placed the charged crystal on that area. That is the only place I felt anything during the healing session. I can say that at times I felt a sort of forceful energy near my chest, head and throat area, where the heart, third eye, and throat chakra lie. As the session ended, she had me open my eyes and I felt a variety of different things upon being released.

After

As I opened my eyes, I felt very tired and quite exhausted. My body still felt slightly numb, but it was almost as if I was slowly inching myself back to my physical body as I started to feel things again at a very slow rate. She began to tell me how she could see that all my chakras were completely closed off and that she noticed a large amount of unnecessary energy surrounding my heart, chest, and third eye chakras. I found this to be interesting because it was those regions where I felt tension and then a release of tension during the healing process. One part of this entire process that I enjoyed the most was the way that she maintained her calm energy and made eye contact with me. She was looking right into my soul and I could feel our soul’s energy intertwining. I did feel some emotions rush out of me afterward, a few tears did appear in my eyes, but I told myself in my head that “I do hurt, but I no longer have to hurt. I am done hurting. I am strong. What happened, happened.” I felt those emotions slowly dwindle away before they had the chance to attack my newly uncovered energy.

As I left her place, I felt better. I recognized that I noticed more sounds around me and that I was seeing things rather than just looking at them, which is due to my pineal gland being activated during my meditative state. I was also tired, but I cannot clearly articulate the feeling I felt and still feel because it is so deep within my soul. The best way I can put it is that I felt and still feel—grounded.

I truly recommend this experience to everyone. If you are in the Eastern Iowa area, pay www.Awaken2Spirit.com a visit. Or, do some research on a reiki healer near you. Your mind, body, and soul will thank you.

I wish you all moments of love, happiness, joy, and bliss. Stay positive. Xx

“I know it seems hard sometimes, but remember one thing. Through every dark night, there’s a bright day after that. So no matter how hard it get, stick your chest out, keep ya head up…. and handle it.”
Tupac Shakur

First things first…

A lot of people think that I have my life together. I am in school. I have my own apartment. My bills get paid on time. But in all reality, I am lost as hell. Over the summer I had my first boyfriend, got dumped by my first boyfriend, moved to a new city alone, and started chiropractic school all within the time span of two months.

Moving to a new city to a studio apartment and living by yourself for the first time is very scary. Then when you add the emotional turmoil caused by your first boyfriend leaving you a week after you move-in—I guess you could say I was and still am—a mess. What can also be said is that all of these events occurring at once has been a humbling experience and has only made me stronger. For quite some time I focused on all of the bad things going on in my life. I was dumped. Most of my friends were all back in my hometown. My family was spread across the country. My pets were at my childhood home. My new classes were difficult. And perhaps the thing that I thought was the worst: for the first time in nineteen years, I felt absolutely alone.

This negative outlook on life caused my mental health to spiral. I began having panic attacks to the point where my body would tingle. I would wake up in the mornings and make panicked calls to my best friend, Ava because I couldn’t stop crying. I would lock myself in my apartment after classes in complete darkness and lie down until I would fall asleep. I would force laughter when I was around my friends, both new and old. I even considered getting back on my old antidepressants because I could feel myself losing myself. I was not Lindsey anymore. I could say that for the second time in my life, I was at an all-time low. Rock bottom. I knew I had two options: continue to suffer or fight like hell to regain the parts of myself that I had lost. To be honest, I did consider the former for a split second because being sad seems easier than working to be happy. But then I reminded myself how much easier it is to be happy, once you reach happiness than it ever was to be sad. I chose to fight like hell.

I started by cutting off contact with my ex-boyfriend and a close friend that we share. I pierced my nose, nipples, and dyed my hair. I scheduled an 80-minute reiki cleansing session to cleanse my entire being of the negative energy that is deeply entwined in my soul. And I started to focus on the good. I had the chance to have a fresh start. I have some of the best friends I could ask for. I am enrolled in the school of my dreams. But more importantly, I am alive, and being alive is without a doubt the greatest gift anyone could ever have–because without life, you can’t be sure of what you would or wouldn’t have. Cherish and appreciate life because I can guarantee you that someone somewhere would do just about anything to give someone that they have lost just an few extra minutes of life.

Right now, my main priority is myself, and I have come to realize that that is an amazing perk of being single. I have the time and space to do whatever the hell I want, which is just another perk of being on your own. Well, actually, whenever I tell myself that I am alone I remember a conversation I had with my brother a few months back. I was 18 and had just moved into my dorm in Chicago at DePaul University and I had a similar, but less severe, feeling of loneliness. My brother had told me that although I may be physically alone, I am never alone in all actuality. He told me that I will always have him, my parents, my sister, my true friends, and all of my extended family. This is something that, in my current situation, I have allowed to drift from my mainstream of consciousness. But as I make my journey back to happiness, it is something that I will remind myself of every single day. I know I may be lost right now. I know I still get flashes of sadness when a memory of my ex crosses my mind. But, whenever I feel this way, I tell myself something that another good friend of mine, Yuliana tells me all the time, “It’s okay to not be okay.” That is perhaps one of the most important things that one can tell themselves. I tend to let myself feel defeated when I feel sadness; but, then I remind myself that I am not defeated, I am just human.

There is nothing wrong with feeling pain, sadness, anger, or frustration. Feeling emotions and expressing emotions is completely normal and actually healthier than keeping them bottled up inside. I know that this will not be an easy journey, but nothing worth having comes easy. And I am so fucking worth it. Keep pushing forward. Xx

“Relearn your knowledge, we change and alter the stream of water. The game, don’t be another machine.”
“System” by Clockwork Indigo (Flatbush Zombies & The Underachievers)