change

I'm switching to tumblr. I hope my dad can still comment.


smiles4peace.tumblr.com

practice makes perfect

stillness, peace of mind, calming down.

All ideals. Things you want; say you have.

Then you start to practice.
Practice stillness, practice peace of mind, practice calming your body.
Practicing these things, is different. so. different. than thinking about these things.
Life changing really.

If you don't practice? How can you do/get these things when you want to?
It doesn't make sense at all.

My first day she said "I don't understand how people don't do yoga"
Now I understand exactly what she meant. And I don't get it either.

the ways you're manifested throughout my life

Started packing to move out of Orange today. Packing could also mean organizing the past past four years and filtering what will make it to the next chapter and what ends here.

I found my journal. I started this almost a year ago. I didn't want to read it, or reminice. I've had plans in my mind to throw away this journal for a few weeks now. I knew exactly what was in it. A struggle. You weren't supposed to be the topic of this journal, but you were.

I flipped to the last page I had written on, just to see the last time I wrote. It was marked Feb 10. And I had written.
"I am happier now."

and so it ends there

this time around

finding peace among chaos. peace among adrenaline.

In yoga, we practice engaging in focus and great intensity for one minute or 30 seconds at a time, then coming back to peace and rest for 20 seconds. And going back and forth between this intense mental and physical struggle and peace, rest, and relaxation. The more I practice this on my mat, I can feel my soul practicing this off the mat.
(It helps to stay out of crisis)

You might just be my person. You email me, we talk, I see your name, I hear your voice; my heart races. My body freezes. My mind goes chaotic. (still.) But, now I come back. I'm in a better place for you now. After the moment of adrenaline, stress, struggle, chaos; after you fill up my mind for a moment, you don't anymore. and - I come back.

Perhaps you are another posture to practice. Or something like that.

then shit got real

My roommate just moved out. for the summer. She's coming back next year, but I won't be here.
The reality is setting in. Summer is here. This year is over.

A while ago (probably around when I started this blog) I didn't think I would make it to this day. I couldn't imagine what it would look like. It wasn't real. It didn't have a picture. It didn't exist.

I can't believe I'm here again. Alone, in this house during the summer. Nothing to do. Too much freedom. With feelings, ooh the feelings. All to similar to the feelings I felt last time I was here; like this. Same feelings of loneliness, confusion, roller coaster waves, and you. It feels eerily the same.

At least this time I know what to do with them.

a card

Life Lesson No. 15

Do what you love...

It's what the world needs from you...
it's what you were meant to do.

on graduation

I am a sociology major. I love sociology, I live sociology, I breathe sociology, I see it everywhere and in everything. I have learned sociology. My life is sociology and I love it.

Top things I've learned in sociology.
1. life is unfair.
2. everyone is crazy and weird but whatever society you grew up in thinks its okay. you're fine.
3. white men rule the world, and probably always will. If you're a minority women - you're screwed.
4. sociology has given me a heart; made me empathetic; taught me to walk in other people's shoes and want to listen to their stories and give value to every voice.
5. women have internalized their oppression so much that most don't even know it
4. question everything. media, books, images, words, everything you take in. What is the bias? What is the motivation? No one and no thing is objective. Question everything. Question reality.
5. everyone wants control.
6. theory is foundation.
7. Tibetan buddhists got it right. If I ever go to Tibet, I doubt I'll return.
8. no matter how you look at it, we're greedy. people commit suicide when times are good because they can't get happy enough.
9. people are animals, we only pretend not to be (relate to number 2)
10. believe in yourself. your experience is the only one that matters. everyone lives in their own world and you are just a part of some one else's and they are yours. believe and follow your heart.

"A mind that questions everything, unless strong enough to bear the weight of its ignorance, risks questioning itself and being engulfed in doubt. If it cannot discover the claims to existence of the objects of its questioning -- and it would be miraculous if it so soon succeeded in solving so many mysteries -- it will deny them all reality, the mere formulation of the problem already implying an inclination to negative solutions. But in so doing it will become void of all positive content and, finding nothing which offers it resistance, will launch itself perforce into the emptiness of inner revere." Emile Durkheim