Most people don't like to admit that their life isn't really as perfect as it might look on the outside. They try to hide up all the family drama, issues with friends and life, or problems that exist with a significant other. I mean who wants to admit failure and screw ups to the people around them? Who wants to be judged or talked about? Who wants their business passed around for others to use as conversation? Nobody of course.
In reading one blog earlier, I couldn't help but keep saying to myself that she is "a girl like the old me". Her blog was very attractive and interesting. Her life was pretty much amazing. She has traveled all over the world, living and vacationing in some great places. She is furthering her education and has big plans for the future to "succeed". She seemed family oriented, giving of her time and service, extremely active within the community and had an active lifestyle. I couldn't help but feel a little jealous for a moment. I mean "damn this B**** has everything. Her positive quotes and outlook on life was almost sickening to me though and I couldn't figure it out. I kept reading her posts which included a variety of topics and just felt BLAH.
And then it hit me. Where was her struggle? Where was her pain? What were her faults? What had she overcome or faced in her life?
I WAS SEARCHING FOR HER MESS?
I couldn't relate to her. I couldn't feel warm and fuzzy with her and I couldn't really even be happy for her success because it was too easy. I know this sounds really judgmental but I'm not judging her, I just want to be honest about how I felt. Reading about her life made me feel like my life was even more lame and crappy. She was a few years younger than me so of course I compared myself to her. She liked a lot of the same things as me, and got to experience all the things I have wanted my whole life. I almost got mad at myself for a second when I thought about how I had thrown my dreams away five years ago. And then I thought what I think a lot of people hate to admit at some point in their life.
This is not where I saw myself at this age. So basically I'm a failure. So lame. She reminded me of all the mess in my life and showed me her perfect, clean, and orangized life as a comparison.
WAIT JUST A MINUTE.........BOOM! *blows whistle*
Finally it hit me out of nowhere. I realized that she represented "a girl like the old me". She had posted everything on that blog that she wants society and readers to perceive her as. Where was the real her? Where was the messy, the flaws, the screw ups? I was tired of hearing about her postiveness waking up and getting out of bed excited for each day. I mean really, get real. As much as I love my life right now, jumping out of the bed is never going to happen unless somebody wakes me up with some extravagant awesome news like winning the lottery or having a publishing company offer me a book deal with an advance.
My jeaolosy and comparisons with her ended immediately when my heart reached out to her. I thought about her future, I thought about her dreams being crushed. I thought about her pour heart being broken and destroyed. I prayed for her in a way. I don't want her to go throught anything that I had to face. I don't want her to ever lose herself the way that I did. And after all that I started to appreciate my failure even more. I thought about how without it, I would never know the meaning of failure, helplessness, emotional abuse, regret, disappointment, feeling lost,
I have experienced the real world. Not only did I live in Kuwait for a year and live amongst Soldiers from every state in the U.S. I got to experience life on the West Coast and in the Midwest. The business environment, the life, the people were all different. I got to experience starting at nothing and making it to something. With no friends, family, or support, I had to find a place to live, start a new life, and resolve some issues from the past life.
From reading my blogs or following me on twitter, you might think that its so great that I can admit my faults to the world without thinking twice about people judging me. Some might think that I have strength and confidence for doing so. The truth is, I do. The other truth is, I worked hard to get there.
Peace and Love
Kristin
Friday, March 18, 2011
The Mess is Success?
How many of you have thought to yourselves that once you overcome a certain obstacle in life or time period, then finally you be able to breath easier and just relax. It could be that your waiting to get caught up with your bills, waiting for summer to get here so you can use your vacation to work around the house, or maybe your waiting for that next step in life whether it be college, your first job, or a new career.
Its possible you are going through some hard times and need to borrow money, cut back on your budget, end a relationship, take care of one of your children or one of your parents. You constantly look towards the future when the mess will finally be over or "when things get better". But haven't you already had the back to back crisis occur at least once? You know, just when you end one hardship, a whole brand new problem appears out of nowhere. Its a neverending messy life isn't it?
If you keep waiting for the "what's next" and if you don't have peace and joy in the present moment, you are missing out on life. Don't get me wrong, its great to have goals and future plans, but if you are constantly worried about the future, how are you ever able to enjoy the moment you are in right now? Love you life right now. Your probably not enjoying the moment because you think its too messy. I could be grief, anger, failure, disappointement, and the list goes on. We tend to throw all the bad stuff in life into this one category and we keep in private. We don't want the world to know that we aren't as great as we really seemed to be.
I often wonder if we all just talked about the mess in our lifes and shared concern as well as motivation with one another, would we see some growth in society as a whole. With pressure from family and the competitionwith our peers, SUCCESS has become the number one objective in life. Success to some could mean starting a family and settling down in a house in a small safe community.
Success from where I came from and that driving passion to make it to the top were based mostly on status, money, recognition, and position. It could also represent all the places that you have traveled, all the things that you have seen, and all those experiences that have made you more diverse and well-rounded.
These seem to be the most popular questions in order to find out more about a person. "Where did you go to college? What company do you work for and what is your title? Where and how big is your house? What kind of car do you drive? Where did you last go on vacation? How big was your wedding? Wedding Dress? Ring? Is that bag Coach or Chanel?"
After you get the answers to these questions, you can finally draw up a conclusion of who that person really is. Right? Wrong. What have you learned about them? Now take a look at the next set of questions.
"What are you passionate about? What are your hobbies? Do you consider yourself spiritual at all? What is one weird strange fact about you? What do you wish you could take back from your past? Do you admit your failures and disappointments to anybody? At your high school 10 year reunion what do you want your peers to remember you for?"
Are you with me still? Now the first set of questions was an excellent way for you to know what a person does. This is what they look like from the outside and how society . You can't really find out who a person truly is without learning more about them not just what they have done or what they do. And so when you start learning more about them, the messy life could start to reveal itself. This is when you find out how people deal with mess. This could be the single most imporant factor for me when determining a person's strength and character. "How well do you deal with the Mess?" Son in other words, when life takes its blows at you one at at time, how do you react and how do you plan to clean up the mess.
You see for me, how well somebody handles the mess is a sign of that persons success. And for those who have experienced more and more mess and those not afraid to admit the mess they are currently in, that is success. So is "The Mess Really Success"
Here are some questions to ask yourself about life. They really get you thinking don't they? Feel free to answer the questions below or comment on this post about anything.
How do you become your true self if you haven't been faced with any challenges?
What is success really?
Who set the standard for that?
So you're going off of society's standards for success or God's?
Peace and Hearts
Kristin
Its possible you are going through some hard times and need to borrow money, cut back on your budget, end a relationship, take care of one of your children or one of your parents. You constantly look towards the future when the mess will finally be over or "when things get better". But haven't you already had the back to back crisis occur at least once? You know, just when you end one hardship, a whole brand new problem appears out of nowhere. Its a neverending messy life isn't it?
If you keep waiting for the "what's next" and if you don't have peace and joy in the present moment, you are missing out on life. Don't get me wrong, its great to have goals and future plans, but if you are constantly worried about the future, how are you ever able to enjoy the moment you are in right now? Love you life right now. Your probably not enjoying the moment because you think its too messy. I could be grief, anger, failure, disappointement, and the list goes on. We tend to throw all the bad stuff in life into this one category and we keep in private. We don't want the world to know that we aren't as great as we really seemed to be.
I often wonder if we all just talked about the mess in our lifes and shared concern as well as motivation with one another, would we see some growth in society as a whole. With pressure from family and the competitionwith our peers, SUCCESS has become the number one objective in life. Success to some could mean starting a family and settling down in a house in a small safe community.
Success from where I came from and that driving passion to make it to the top were based mostly on status, money, recognition, and position. It could also represent all the places that you have traveled, all the things that you have seen, and all those experiences that have made you more diverse and well-rounded.
These seem to be the most popular questions in order to find out more about a person. "Where did you go to college? What company do you work for and what is your title? Where and how big is your house? What kind of car do you drive? Where did you last go on vacation? How big was your wedding? Wedding Dress? Ring? Is that bag Coach or Chanel?"
After you get the answers to these questions, you can finally draw up a conclusion of who that person really is. Right? Wrong. What have you learned about them? Now take a look at the next set of questions.
"What are you passionate about? What are your hobbies? Do you consider yourself spiritual at all? What is one weird strange fact about you? What do you wish you could take back from your past? Do you admit your failures and disappointments to anybody? At your high school 10 year reunion what do you want your peers to remember you for?"
Are you with me still? Now the first set of questions was an excellent way for you to know what a person does. This is what they look like from the outside and how society . You can't really find out who a person truly is without learning more about them not just what they have done or what they do. And so when you start learning more about them, the messy life could start to reveal itself. This is when you find out how people deal with mess. This could be the single most imporant factor for me when determining a person's strength and character. "How well do you deal with the Mess?" Son in other words, when life takes its blows at you one at at time, how do you react and how do you plan to clean up the mess.
You see for me, how well somebody handles the mess is a sign of that persons success. And for those who have experienced more and more mess and those not afraid to admit the mess they are currently in, that is success. So is "The Mess Really Success"
Here are some questions to ask yourself about life. They really get you thinking don't they? Feel free to answer the questions below or comment on this post about anything.
How do you become your true self if you haven't been faced with any challenges?
What is success really?
Who set the standard for that?
So you're going off of society's standards for success or God's?
Peace and Hearts
Kristin
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Confess The Mess: My First Series For Guest Bloggers
All of us have messy lives. The mess can be emotional, financial, physical, spiritual, sexual, or a "combo mess". From what I have experienced and learned in this entire process is that when one area is affected by the mess, the other areas soon start to show signs of a messy future. It is best to clean out the mess before it multiplies. I just realized that I'm watching hoarders right now while writing this post. This has got to be our sign and/or warning that if we don't take care of our messy life, we could end up as a hoarder with both physical and emotional junk that's so great it makes it on television. We don't want to ever have our mess consume our life that much. Unless that is, your goal is simply to make it on television and this is your last resort.
"Confess The Mess" was inspired by one of my readers. She is a "closet writer" which is what I have decided to call those individuals who do not claim to be writers and wish to remain anonymous. I'm so excited that this blog has turned out to be something that so many of my readers can relate to. I randomly chose a title that ended up having multiple meanings about life. The best part is that I really chose it because it made fun of me for actually being a little bit messy.
If you need to confess your mess in life and have no other outlet, writing seems to be one of the more popular ways to express feelings and emotions. For those struggling with the decision of whether or not to remain anonymous or not, please don't ever beat yourself up about being private. That is who you are and as a part of embracing who you are, you should fully accept your individual personality.
Stay tuned for the anonymous writers as they join my blog for the series "Confess The Mess"
Peace and Hearts
Kristin
"Confess The Mess" was inspired by one of my readers. She is a "closet writer" which is what I have decided to call those individuals who do not claim to be writers and wish to remain anonymous. I'm so excited that this blog has turned out to be something that so many of my readers can relate to. I randomly chose a title that ended up having multiple meanings about life. The best part is that I really chose it because it made fun of me for actually being a little bit messy.
If you need to confess your mess in life and have no other outlet, writing seems to be one of the more popular ways to express feelings and emotions. For those struggling with the decision of whether or not to remain anonymous or not, please don't ever beat yourself up about being private. That is who you are and as a part of embracing who you are, you should fully accept your individual personality.
Stay tuned for the anonymous writers as they join my blog for the series "Confess The Mess"
Peace and Hearts
Kristin
Mess On The Move
On Friday, March 11, 2011, me and Coco started out journey back to Virginia. It was three years ago and one month exactly when I got on the plane for California. I can't really begin to explain all the thoughts and feelingsI have in just this one post. So of course that is why I have this blog and I'm trying to write a book.
I still can't believe that my car made the trip again. My car is 5 years old this month. Crazy huh?
We had a short stop the next morning at Sonic for breakfast. I ended up taking about an hour for a break. Who knows where we were. I was just following the google map.
We stopped at a rest area later that day and played fetch for about ten minutes. We also had a short photo shoot to capture the moment. Coco thought she would be cute and has her tongue sticking out in this one.
Peace and Hearts
Kristin
Monday, March 14, 2011
Edit the Mess: Organizing and Downsizing Pre-move
The Mess (March 5, 2011)
This is a procrastinators worst nightmare. Believe me when I say this was so hard. I had no motivation to pack and this junk up. I thought once about giving everything away and just starting over, but of course I know that I would have had regrets. Thanks to Heather, Jinell, and Stephanie, I got motivated to pack, give away items that I didn't need to carry with me, and throw out some of the junk. Coco's anxiety kicked in around this time. This will be the 4th move of her life and she has not even turned three yet. My dog is extrememly diverse and adaptable. "she get it from her mama"
Peace and Hearts
Kristin
The Mess. The Packing. The Move.
Photo taken March 5, 2011
There was a tornado that touched down earlier in Tulsa, Oklahoma leaving one girl with nothing but a mess. Clothing, shoes, accessories, books, office supplies, souvenirs from the past, and more had been scattered all throughout the home. One giant storm leaves this young woman with a big mess. Her journey will be difficult and her journey could be long. But one day she will realize that the belongings she holds onto are the ones that will always be with her, as she rids herself of the clutter that is part of the mess.
Welcome to my messy life. I hope you enjoy my adventures as I finish completing this project I refer to as "Her Journey Through The Mess"
Peace & Hearts
Kristin
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