NaBloPoMo Day 16: Mind, Body or Soul?

Of the three - mind, body, soul - which do you prefer? Which do you think is most important? - Daydreaming on Paper Random Prompts

I prefer soul, but I can't really pick any one as most important, if you ever talk to me, you'll find that I'm a huge fan of the holistic model of health when it comes to rehabilitation. I believe that each is interconnected and you need all of them to function properly.

NaBloPoMo Day 15: Update + Thoughts on Hair

I missed yesterday again oops. I got caught up writing. I finally hit 10k for my NaNoWriMo novel, of course I'm still behind, but hey i'm really happy that I got as far as I did. I'm about on target if I want to have the same wordcount I had last year by the end of the month, though ideally I want to try to see if I can hit 40k this year. :)

I also am totally flopping at PiBoIdMo... but I don't mind. I'll try again next year.

The Blogher prompts really don't call to me this week and I refuse to force something to come out, so I'm going to use the Daydreaming on Paper generator again.

Do you like your hair? Is it straight and sleek? Wild and unruly? - Daydreaming on Paper Random Prompts

Yeah, I like my hair a lot. It's straight, sleek, and relatively thin.. I'm finally actually taking care of it properly and I think it likes me now. I think my mother's jealous because I'm growing my hair out. I love it long and I'm being stubborn and refusing to see the hair dresser until my "bangs" are the same length as the back. Almost there. It has a couple more inches to grown.

NaBloPoMo Day 13: Dream Trips

List all of the places that you would visit if you had unlimited time and money. - Day Dreaming on Paper Random Prompts

• Egypt


• Japan


• The UK


• California


• Canada


• the touristy parts of Mexico in the off-season


• Washington, DC


• Italy


• Spain


• Australia


• New Zealand

NaBloPoMo Day 12

Does solitude aid or hinder your creative pursuits? - Daydreaming on Paper Random Prompts

Honestly I find solitude tends to hinder my creativity, though I do need an occasional recharge period of solitude to aid in keeping my creativity flowing. I think the fact that I need people to help me write is one of the reasons I do NaNoWriMo and other challenges throughout the year.

NaBloPoMo Day 11: Three Wishes

It's 11/11/11, make 3 wishes...

I'm not sharing most of my deeper wishes, but I'll share these ones:

1. I wish that the other member of the drama I dealt with earlier this month has cooled off
2. I wish that the rest of this month is brighter than the first half of it
3. I wish the upcoming holiday season is enjoyable

NaBloPoMo Day 10: Passions

What is your secret (or not-so-secret) passion? - Jean Kwok

Writing stories about processes of recovery, whether they be fanfiction or original fiction is one of my biggest not-so-secret passions as far as writing is concerned.

The other not-so-secret passion of mine is self-knowlege: I'm studying runes, I've studied tarot, I research a lot of astrology/zodiac stuff from a variety of locations. I've studied totems and spirit animals. I've studied other personality pseudo-sciences. I like learning about the subconscious, basically.

NaBloPoMo Day 9: Not Like The Rest

When was the first time that you realized that your home was not like other people’s homes? - Catherine Gildiner

IDK. I don't really think the house I live in is much unlike others... It's just a unique housing situation atm... Some of these questions I feel are a little more adult than I am...

I also guess that I do realize my family tends to be a lot different than the families I have visited and known, since most families I've interacted with are not as large as mine.

I also guess for me I have a different definition of "home" as well, since for me home is more people I care about than where I live. And while that is common, my interpretation of it is somewhat broader (and this gets me in awkward situations with my fiance at times).

Day 8: Traumatic Events

Not in the common sense of the word, though I do consider several challenges that exacerbated my mental health issues traumatic events... One such event ocurred in high school in the aftermath of a friend's suicide attempt. My friend swore another friend and I to secrecy about her subsequent hospitalization making it difficult to process the situation or cope with the fact that we were all triggering each other's issues and insecuritied. In the years that followed there was a lot of in-fighting.

NaBloPoMo Day 7: Making Time for Family

Making family time is important to me. How do you balance your children, relationship, and work life? - Ricki Lake

Well I don't have kids yet nor do I work, so I can't really tell you much on this topic. And I still haven't really managed to balance out my relationships with my fiance, with my blood-family both immediate and extended, with my chosen-family of friends, and with people at my school community.

I think a lot of it though comes down to how much you're willing to interact and communicate, I know personally I care a lot about particular people in both areas of my family, but others I want little to do with. I do my best to balance out seeing all parts of my family (both blood and chosen), even when I'm reluctant to interact with them. I try to set aside time whenever I can, and I'm planning on trying to initiate some visit planning with a few cousins and aunts this winter.

NaBloPoMo Day 6: Freewrite

whoops forgot about writing yesterday.

Struggling with getting a lot of things done, it's kind-of hard when everything seems to pick up in November so I'm a bit distracted.

Reworking my NaNoWriMo into something I can tolerate a bit more, but that's ok. It's all good, basically I'm kind-of picking up where i flopped on camp and turning it into a bit more of a storytelling feast in my head, which still works anyways.

NaBloPoMo Day 4: Pen or Computer?

When you are writing, do you prefer to use a pen or a computer?

Mostly it depends on what I'm writing. Generally I find if I know what I'm writing about, like using these prompt posts, I like my computer because it flows out of me a lot quicker.

If I have no idea what I'm doing, I like pen and paper because it minimizes my tendency to go on auto-pilot distract mode. I'll doodle in the margins for a minute until something makes me go, "Oh I want to follow that bunny!"

NaBloPoMo Day 3: Writing & Music

It depends, but generally I can write and llisten to music.... I've kind of been having a rough week and lately I've been playing Sarah Mclachlan's "Fallen" on repeat.

NaBloPoMo Day 2: Last Meal

If you knew that whatever you ate next would be your last meal, what would you want it to be?

That's a good question. I think if I could make a meal out of all my favorite things it would end up being my aunt's sausage square hors d'oeuvres and my dad's holiday cocktail weenies for an appetizer, my fiance's burgers for an entree with potato chips on the side, and chocolate chip cookies for dessert.

NaBloPoMo Day 1: What is your favorite part about writing?

My favorite part about writing is getting all the ideas out of my head. I like the rush I get from writing, when the only obstacle is me. Writing for me is like therapy, I can talk about things that I don't normally talk about. It's a way for me to communicate when no one else would be able to understand.

Simply Bliss Life Journaling Challenge Day 1 - Are You At Peace?

“When you find peace within yourself, you become the kind of person who can live at peace with others.”

~Peace Pilgrim Quote

Are you at peace with yourself? If yes, What did you do to get there? If not what’s preventing you from being at peace?

- Journaling Challenge Day 1

I'm answering these more in detail in a private journal on a different website, but I am comfortable enough with myself to explain the broad stroke details over here, so I'll be posting these type of broad stroke entries here as well.

At the moment, the short answer is no, but I'd like to be.

What's holding me back? Well, it's complicated, but I suppose my year-long time in dialectical behavioral therapy groups explains some semblance of the why in a very metaphysical manner.

I'm (over)willful and stubborn and my resistance is the problem. I'm stopping myself because I'm familiar with the not-peace with myself. I want to try to fix things, even if they're not things I can fix. I'm having a hard time figuring out how to balance the desire for change and newness with the unfamiliarity of it. The fact that my life right now seems like a bunch of question marks kind-of scares me.

I'm also afraid what other people will think of me. Even though I know I'm trying to do better for me, I know I intrinsically need people and sometimes I'm afraid of how much to tell the people in my life about who I am and what I feel like for fear that they'll think something's wrong with me, and sometimes I feel that's not very far off from the truth. It's hard to see past my limitations when I don't know how other people will react to them.

Smash 365: Talent

Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow that talent to the dark place where it leads. ~Erica Jong

If we accept the fact that we have talent, we realize that all we need is the courage to dig deep within ourselves and let it thrive.

Today, make a list of your talents — both those that others have recognized in you and those that you know about yourself. Boast about those talents in your writing!

Don’t worry, that list is just between you and the page you write it on. Don’t hold back, and celebrate the talents that define who you are!

I'm a writer, I'm a dreamer, I'm intuitive. I'm a good teacher. I like dealing with little kids. I like helping people. I can see most sides to an issue.

I can pick up accents and speaking styles quite easily and am usually able to adapt my language to suit a situation based only on what I can hear around me. I'm enthusiastic.

Smash365: Dreams

If you are going to create anyway, if you cannot avoid dreaming, then why not create a beautiful dream? Why not dream well and really enjoy your dream? If you can believe in your limitations, then why not believe in the beauty and power of life that’s flowing through you? – Don Miguel Ruiz, The Fifth Agreement

What is a limitation you believe you have? What would happen if you believed the opposite? - Smash365

That quote is pretty much a good explanation OF my limitations. I tend to spend so much time dreaming that sometimes I lose sight of what exactly I do want to bring to reality.

I have a hard time figuring out how to create my dreams. And working past what my disabilities are. Living with severe anxiety and depression has made it very hard to figure out what my talents are when I lose steam with them.

I imagine if I could get past the disability, I might be happier rather than letting it define me.

It's just figuring out how.

Smash 365: Change

Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge. ~Eckhart Tolle

Change is inevitable in our lives. Think about recent changes in your life. How have they provided you with space for something new to emerge? Write for at least 10 to 15 minutes about change and see if new ideas emerge that were previously undiscovered… - Smash 365

A lot of changing coming up over the past few months and trying desperately to keep poking at them ever so slowly. Some of the changes is that I'm trying not to over pressure myself, but also pushing myself out of my comfort zone.

I've been taking swimming lessons which is something that's been in the back of my mind for awhile and I've just not had the motivation to do before.

LiveJournal's been down for the past few days, but I've been fairly active on one of my journals in a recovery community for people who like me struggle with emotion regulation. I like the fact that it's a community geared toward recovery, rather than commiseration.

My therapist is also trying to point me toward doing a Recovery Education Program at one of the local universities, though I'm not so sure about it. It could be really useful for me, though. I really want to talk to someone there about how the program works before I decide... On that front, I also have to make a lot of really tough phone calls really soon... It's one of the hard things about having an invisible disability.

I'm also trying to do these posts from Smash 365, even though they're somewhat hard topics for me to blog about.

And for August while I'm continuing with struggling with my Camp NaNoWriMo goal, I'm also going to be using this journal to do some self-awareness writing through SimplyBlissLife's blog.