Welcome to the black-eyed SUZIE blog! 

black-eyed SUZIE music is dedicated to bringing quality music to the public that is inspiring and relatable across all sectors of society and all age groups. Our aim is to inspire growth, self-awareness, support, safety, introspection, love and light. We want our followers to relate to our message of hope and solidarity no matter what life throws at you! 
 

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Always with Love & Peace 
Christine for black-eyed SUZIE

If you’re a homebody and introvert like me, self-isolation and quarantine will be fairly easy during this crisis. However, a few people have indicated some anxiety around staying busy enough at home in the coming weeks, possibly months. I honestly can’t relate as I love my quiet solitude and have no problem whatsoever finding things to keep me occupied, even if that’s just chillin’ on my porch swing listening to the birds sing!  Obviously everyone is not like this, and perhaps this list will seem lame, but maybe there’ll be something novel in here that you may like to try! If nothing else, perhaps it will inspire you to write and post your own list of things to do for the extroverts in your camp! So please leave helpful comments and tips to our readers! 

1.  Get Control Of That Nagging Work Issue. 

So, obviously, some of you may still be working from home during this crisis, and would rather be laying on the couch under a comfy blanket watching your favorite Netflix series! But if you’re regular duties have been cut back, you may have some time to tackle that nagging issue that’s been playing around in the background. This would be a great time to do what you need to do to finally get to it and deal with it! Maybe you need to work on that next team building event, or you need to put in a proposal to update the computer system. Perhaps it was time to plan a major trip away from the work grind! Whatever it is, if you have nothing urgent to do, this would be a good time to get down to it! 

2. Take Up A New Hobby 

Remember that dream you had to write a book, knit the world’s longest scarf, or learn how to play the Accordion? Now would be a good time to hop on the net and pick up some FREE instructions. But get to the music store for that accordion quick, before they sell out! And remember, with the impending economy crash and job losses, this hobby may just serve as a viable alternative to make a little extra cash.

3. Video Chat 

It’s 2020 people! Being alone staring at a wall with nothing to do but read or play board games or cards in your dingy apartment without a soul to talk to is a thing of the past! We are fully connected globally, and sure it’s not quite the same, but it’s infinitely better than waiting for a telegram for three months from that distant aunt who lives in Germany! This is truly something we take for granted nowadays, so no need to get down! Celebrate technology with your favorite beverage of choice, and if you don’t know how to download Whatsapp or Skype to your phone, tablet or laptop, well now’s a great opportunity to learn how to do that too!! 

4. Go For A Walk 

Until we are strictly quarantined to our homes (if we ever get to that), we can still drive to that beautiful park down the road (walk or bike,) and percolate in the fresh air and sunshine. And speaking of which, with the death of traffic and polluting factories, you may see clean, clear water and air for the first time in your life! Take advantage of this and take the time to ponder on this novel phenomena and perhaps rethink the way that we live as individuals and as a society, and how our actions do truly impact our own lives and the fragile earth we claim to love so much! Let's learn from this!

5. Reach Out To Others 

This one seems like a no-brainer, but it is huge in a time like this. My daughter and I went through a very traumatizing event several years ago and we struggled virtually alone. I shouldn’t have to tell you how much more damaging that was to our situation and the length of time it took us to get back on our feet. While we did get strong and develop a tough skin, it didn’t have to be this way. People don’t always do this to others purposefully, they are most likely busy and focused on their own lives, but nonetheless, if there’s one thing we need more of in this society, with the crippling rates of depression and loneliness due to isolation and the net, it is a greater sense of community. So don’t be a stranger. Reach out to the neighbors and those friends you’ve been neglecting. They need you too, especially at a time like this. Like suggested above, video chat, call or write (yes, we can still send cards and letters via mail)! Remember: We are stronger together. 

6. Get A Pet 

Pets are a priceless addition to a person's or family’s life. They are selfless for the most part, they take our focus off of ourselves and our own issues, and they provide a wealth of entertainment and emotional and physical affection that sometimes even surpasses that of our human counterparts! If you are able to commit to one for the long haul (some pets only live 2 years!) then it may be the perfect time to jump in, especially at a time like this when businesses like pet shelters will also be suffering to stay afloat. You’ll be helping the shelters, saving and enhancing animal's lives, and enhancing your own. It’s a win, win, win! 

7. Try Video Gaming 

Now I will admit that I just can’t get into video games myself yet, but overwhelming research shows that video games improve depression and even memory and overall brain function. If this isn’t reason enough to dive in with the high rates of Alzheimers and Dementia related illnesses that plague our elders, then I don’t know what is! And you don’t have to choose from the violent games. There are so many fun ones like Minecraft. Find more HERE. If you need help, get those millennial grandkids down! They’ll be more than happy to help and there are probably more than a few Game Cubes and Wii’s collecting dust in their closets that they can lend out! 

8. Spring Clean 

Yes, you heard right! It is that time of year actually, so why not get clean and organized and prepare for that garage sale you always wanted to have?  At one time I was admittedly a bit of a clean freak, but since I lowered my standards, I was a bit shocked to find 3 inches of oily dust and cobwebs on top of my cabinets after just a year! My mother (bless her soul) used to stage spring cleaning twice a year where we’d pull all the china and cooking supplies out of the cupboards and wash everything down. I can’t say I do that anymore, but it can’t hurt right? My oven looks pretty dismal in there I must admit! We don’t have to be all OCD, but this can be fun and quite satisfying! And do get those kids off their keisters and involved! 

9. Get In The Kitchen 

The modern woman may utterly shudder at this statement, but hey, some of us have actually forgotten how to cook! So get creative and stir up some new recipes from around the world! Or get back to your roots and learn the old ones that stir up fantastic memories from Grandma’s kitchen! Recently we found a wealth of original recipes and videos of Czech recipes that we often reminisce about. A lot of them were passed down and there were a million variations, so we had to experiment, which made it all the more fun! So you too can create your own custom recipes and then share your stories with your family around supper. The kids may learn something new about their heritage while you re-awaken some long lost memories from childhood. 

10. Do Your Taxes 

Now’s the time to hit the dreaded taxes and if you like to be a procrastinator you have zero excuses! While you get your stuff together, perhaps you’ve never done them yourself, so this could be the year you challenge yourself to! And don’t forget to check your tax account online to see if there are any unclaimed cheques to cash out. You just never know! But please be forewarned in the event that you find any bills owing!

11. Start A Garden

Some of you get a head start on gardening annually. Others of us either wait for the greenhouses to open, or don't garden at all. But this is the perfect year to try gardening from scratch if you've always wanted to try but never had time.  So if time is on your side (as it is on the Canadian prairies here), do your research and get out there to the hardware stores and dive in. There's nothing that can cheer a person up better than tending to seedlings and anticipating the colorful bouquet of flowers forthcoming! 

So there you have it, eleven things to do! Life will go on fairly normally for us here I think as we continue working on our recording and writing projects! And if all else fails, I plan on drumming up some new paintings!

To everyone out there, please stay safe, share the love and stay strong. We can get though this together. For those of you falling ill or losing loved ones to critical illness, we send our thoughts, much love and strength.

Love & Peace Be With You All,

Christine

Perhaps you’ve been there! You’ve tried and tried numerous ways to get a point across, to get someone you know and may even love, to pay attention to a problem, in order to make them aware of what they are doing that is bothering you…to get them to…ultimately…CHANGE! 

But trying to change someone often leaves us feeling drained and more frustrated than we started. It depletes our energy resources and negatively affects our outlook on life. We become frustrated…and then, WE begin to change! We get increasingly irritated, we feel ignored and disrespected, and then we do things that are unbecoming of us, things that go against our own values and integrity. And in the end, we get dragged down and are held back from whatever potential or goal we were striving for in the first place! 

Due to the strong desire I've always had to help people realize their greater potential, (and let's face it, essentially "fix" them so that we could get along better!), it took me a long time to learn and really accept that what you often see upfront is what you are going to get, and that no amount of pressuring and/or positive influencing is going to change a person unless and only unless, THEY want to willfully and intentionally change for THEMSELVES.

As frustrating as it can be, sometimes others hold onto their behavior patterns because it gives them something. It serves them somehow and they aren't going to give that up just because that something is not serving us. We'd like to think they we can arrive at a mutually beneficial agreement, but sometimes that's just not possible. Realizing that is a key component of self-awareness that when tuned into can give us the opportunity to change that dynamic by "zipping it" and taking our needs in a more appreciated direction. Sometimes even we ourselves get caught up in these dynamics and think it’s easier to hang on to what does not serve us. Maybe deep down we even enjoy the drama because that is what we’ve always known in some capacity…until it starts eating away at us from the inside.  You can get comfortable in a dynamic of scarcity and limitation, even if that limitation is not yours and it is being imposed on you.

I'm here to tell you that it doesn’t have to be that way! 

If you’ve done any level of work on yourself, it becomes much easier to understand how difficult changing is after being entrenched in toxic and unfulfilling patterns with the wrong people for most of our lives. The truth is, that sometimes, due to differences in our characters, in our upbringings, or our goals and values, we just don’t align with certain people and the path they are on. And that is OKAY. It’s really okay to just be okay with that! End of story! Moving on! 

So why is this so hard for some of us to let go and move on?

Well, it can be complicated if you’ve been told that everyone should march to the beat of the same drum, or if there is social pressure and you are made to feel as tho you will let others down. Or your decision to disconnect and change course may result in painful consequences, like ostracism, or a loss in privileges you might have become accustomed to, or even reliant on. Life is not simple and straight forward. In the end we may desperately hang on to avoid the inevitable pain associated with loss because let's face it, loss can really hurt! Faced with the weight of that inevitable darkness, it’s common to forget about that little piece of light flickering at the end of the tunnel! 

I used to suffer a lot, waiting on others to change. I would beat my head up against a wall and beg them to try, until I realized that they didn't want to, or for whatever reason just couldn't. I had to dump a lot of dead weight from my life to finally see that it was much more pleasant to let go of what did not align with my life than to hang on to what was working against it. 

Was it easy? Certainly not! However, in time and with practice, I got clear about what I wanted and needed. I developed a thicker skin and stopped caring as much what people in general thought of me and I stopped looking for approval and validation from sources that for whatever reason had no capacity to do so. And as the icing on the cake, I stopped worrying about why that was and just accepted it. I started doing other things that aligned with this attitude too, like, I stopped being so hard on myself when I made mistakes. I stopped looking around to see what others were doing. I just stopped all of the distracting other-focus behaviors and began to focus on the things that I needed to do to create deeper meaning, fulfillment, joy and purpose in my life….period! 

I haven't gotten this down completely yet, but I now do understand the value of NOT communicating and wasting my breath on those who just don’t care. And don’t get me wrong, I still think there is tremendous value in communicating your thoughts and feelings. Just be sure that those don’t fall on deaf, uninvested ears!

You are important. You matter. And you deserve a life aligned with who you are, how you think and feel…how you roll. So find people who can and want to be there for you, even if it's just one person. It will save you heaps of frustration and wasted time!

And lastly and most importantly, be sure to be gracious when you do find them, and pay it forward!

Love & Peace,

Christine                               

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

Are you alone this Thanksgiving? Holidays can be a difficult time, I know, I really do because I’ve been there, and it dawned on me today that many of you may be literally alone or simply feeling very alone and unsupported, so, here are my top 5 tips from experience, for surviving the holiday weekend.  

#1 Spend Quality Time With Yourself.  

Yes I know, you want and may need connection, but we often overlook the need to nurture our inner souls. Sometimes we can’t even bear to because the soul of us is hurting so deeply we are afraid of it. Ultimately, we scare ourselves away from the one person who should care the most about our personal well being…US.  

So, begin by sitting quietly with yourself. Find a quiet safe place at home, at a park, in a greenhouse space, or run a hot bath with candles. Close your eyes and connect to the lonely feelings inside of you. It will feel palpable, like dread, weight, heaviness in the heart, or in your throat. Or maybe it’s in your head. Once you connect to it, say to it, “I feel you” and then visualize letting that feeling move out of your body, up and out. Spin it out like a tornado, or cough it out! However you visualize this dark matter leaving your body, just release it out into the universe. Breath through this process as holding your breath makes it harder to let go. Once the feeling is gone visualize warm heat from the sun filling up that empty space and expanding throughout your body. This warmth can be universal light or light from a higher power, whatever you choose. You should feel some immediate relief. It may take a few times to do this type of release work, but it is so worth it.  

When we take the time to connect with ourselves, we take responsibility to nurture ourselves in a way that most others cannot, and we come to love and accept ourselves more deeply, even those lonely needy parts!  

#2 Reach Out To Someone.  

Image by Mabel Amber, still incognito... from Pixabay

Often when we are alone, it’s hard to get outside of ourselves and give to others in need because our own needs are so great. Sometimes we feel so empty and deprived that we feel as though we have literally nothing to give. But this is just our ego playing out the victim and keeping us desperately stuck and wallowing in self-pity. Over-ride this by forcing yourself to reach out to someone. In essence you are telling your ego that it is lying to you and that you in fact do have something within you to offer. Doing this often and consistently can break your victimhood. No doubt, we can truly be victims of circumstance and of others, but we do not have to be held hostage. You are strong enough to overcome anything given the will. And as they say, you can choose to work against it and even fake it ‘til you make it! So pick up the phone and call someone. Don’t wait for anyone to call you!  

#3 Watch Something Funny!  

Image by Jan Vašek from Pixabay

You got it. Get into your favorite pj’s, settle in with a cozy blanket, get a bowl of your favorite snacks (popcorn with melted butter, honey and chocolate is my personal homemade fav!) and watch something funny. Nothing is worse than being alone and having nothing to do, or worse, watching dark, scary, heavy shows! If you don’t have Netflix then pull out your favorite old classics (mine are Seinfeld or Monty Python), or find a podcast or radio show to brighten the mood. Even a good funny book will do! And if you have one, invite a friend, who might also be alone, or just willing to hang out, to join you. If you don’t it’s totally fine! If you prefer being alone just embrace it. The sooner you do the happier you will feel.  

#4 Let It All Out!  

Image by AURELIE LUYLIER, You're Welcome! from Pixabay

It’s a common fact that holidays often bring out the worst in people. Human relationships are complex and family systems are not the fairytales that long outdated post war 50’s propaganda campaigns had us believing! You may be feeling isolated due to a breakup, stigmatizing issues like cyclical abuse in family systems, or bullying. You may have left a bad situation and are standing your ground alone because others do not care to understand, are incapable of getting it, or do not have the same courage to stand with you. My daughter and I experienced this firsthand and it was extremely traumatizing. We had to lose everything to get out of a horrible situation and then suffer through a long process of isolation and letting it out: Letting out the disappointment, the rage, the hurt, the seeming unfairness.  How did we do that?  

Well, this is going to sound a bit weird, but honestly, we had to do some radical things to purge our minds and souls of the negative feelings we developed towards others who had abandoned us like yesterday’s trash. At some point along this journey, I read that it’s okay and quite necessary, to get mad (really freaking mad!) and have an all-out adult temper tantrum! If you are like me, you may have never had childhood tantrums, or maybe you weren’t allowed to (without getting spanked)! So I waited until I was alone and totally let loose! I screamed into a pillow, beat the bed, flung myself around, kicked at the air! Believe me, it may not have felt like my finest moment, but it felt great! By the time I was done, I was like most kids, looking around wondering what all the fuss was about. I effectively knocked down the fire and poured water on the coals until there was nothing left to rage at.  

Another way to do this is to go for a good run, furiously ride a bike (hills help), or if housebound due to this year’s record precipitation, do a workout in knee-deep snow, snow suit and all! Do this often, as often as you need! My personal favorite is jumping on a trampoline cause that way you just feel like a kid again, jumping on the bed. It will put a smile back on your face and bring you more into balance!  

#5 Don’t Isolate Yourself!  

Image by Anemone123 from Pixabay

I know, I know, you feel rotten and don’t want to be around people, and as an introvert I get that more than you know. But sometimes we have to give ourselves a little kick in a direction, even if we have to drag ourselves out kicking and screaming!  I’m the queen of homebody, I mean, there’s nothing I look forward to more everyday than being in my little cave! But it gets lonely in here at times too, and especially on holidays. So put on something comfy and get out to the mall, a park, help out at a soup kitchen, basically wherever there are people, and spread a little cheer where you can. There are loads of people out there feeling just like you do, trust me, and a hello or a smile or a light conversation with that nice lady who just lost her husband a year ago, can really make someone’s day a bit brighter. If you don’t believe me then go try it yourself. It’s shocking how many people are feeling isolated. This all goes back to point #2. If you stay hiding indoors in your little cave you will never know who else might need a little attention too. And who knows? You might just meet your next best friend!  

Here’s a little story related to this that I want to share. One year, my girl and I spent thanksgiving at an event that we were invited to participate in. It was not well organized and rather shoddily put together. Now this is not nice to admit, but we ended up in giggles at one point in the presentation when you could honestly hear a pin drop (you know, like the kind of giggles you got as a young girl with your sister during a serious sermon in church)! I hadn’t laughed like that in years, nor had I laughed like that during a public event with my own daughter! It was a sweet bonding moment that we still talk about, and later we got to share in a thanksgiving buffet that reminded us of family get-togethers from the distant past. Sure, we only had each other, and that was okay. We were warriors of a brand new world creating our own memories and enjoying laughs that we never would have shared had we stayed indoors!  

Being alone at Thanksgiving is never fun, but it doesn’t have to be torture. Maybe you have some tips to share of your own. If you do, we'd love to hear them in the comments below! Until next time…  

Love & Peace,  

Christine

You know the old adage, " Be Careful What You Wish For"? Recently my son gifted me a string of lucky numbers to wish on. I've never been into Numerology, my "thing"  falls "sort of" more into the realm of Animal Guides despite the fact that I'm still a huge skeptic, but that's only because so many truly mysterious and otherwordly things have happened to me since childhood to ignore that something in this strange and wild world is definitely amiss!  

So I ride on the fence of curiousity at a distance and just take things in stride, nothing too serious, nothing too light. And who wouldn't make a wish, if not just for pure fun, on a string of silly numbers? 

That night, as I lay in bed I put my request out into the universal space, tentatively asking through cringed eyes that the negative cost not be too high. You know how it goes, right? Everything good must be balanced by the bad. No one gets a free ride, especially when you're selfishly asking! The giver doesn't ask what would be a fair exchange either. 

As a bit of unease set in, I uttered the words that would unleash a torrent of consequences that would radically change the course of my life in the coming weeks and months.  The universe pounced in like a lion and swatted me thru a new door that would simultaneously spell one radical end and a new beginning that would leave me flailing around in no man's land for a a terrifying and indeterminable amount of time. 

Be careful what you wish for, someone always told me. 

Luckily you can't die easily from a blow like that when it is balanced by the very gift you wished for! Good versus bad. The war was on and the good stuff poured in while the less than good stuff clawed at my back. I celebrated through laughter on one hand and lamented through tears on the other. My friends were probably genuinely concerned that I had finally cracked! 

What on earth does one do with all this? 

I carefully weighed in, trying to make sense of it all, while surrendering to the madness, cause at that point there was nothing left to do. I was flat on my back in a foreign vessel, far from shore, and looking up into the starry blue yonder with no paddles on board. "What now?" was the burning question tearing apart my gut that was now wracked with serious ulcerous pain! 

Note to self: When one door opens, get the hell out of the way of the one that will inevitably slam you in the back!  

Luckily, I had an army of friends this time waiting on the other side to pick me up and swiftly set me back on my feet. A small loving push in a direction helps, even if it's not quite the right one. Start rowing anyway, even if it's with your bare hands! The shore is out there and a mysterious new world awaits. 

The first time this happened five years prior, the door caused considerably more damage. This one really hurt, but it was familiar and not quite so painful! As I've discovered (too many times, imho), pain creates a sort of resilience that can go a long way in helping us figure out what fits, what works best for us, what we desire most, where we want to go, and where we want to be in X amount of time. And sometimes, even then, the universe just decides for us.  This time the recovery was much faster! I figured out much quicker that the trick was to keep moving with my eye on the prize I had wished for in the first place while moving through the inevitable discomfort of negative balance. I had to hope that the consequences tied to others would work in their favor as well. 

But that is the thing, we are never alone in the decisions we make. We are all tiny parts of a whole. Small cogs in a wheel that keeps grinding away forging new pathways and we all have to decide where we are going while inevitably bumping up against one another. I may put wishes on the back burner for awhile and just let life take me where it wants to. But what of other's wishes? How do those affect the rest of us? Action begets reaction. It's never really as simple as making a wish that we hope comes true. 

So remember this: We are not singular organisms playing out our lives without seriously and sometimes irreparably affecting (and possibly damaging) the greater whole. When you make a wish, certainly make it count and make it smart!

When your standards are low and your expectations are high and you count on people to support you, and you expect your life in general to go well, what do you do when you find yourself struggling alone, maybe even sinking, in a sea of life's greatest and sometimes most unimaginable challenges? 

I found myself in this situation for many years, all the while flailing around desperately trying to stay afloat in a situation where I was never going to survive let alone thrive. Occasionally there might have been a piece of driftwood that would float by to provide me with something to grab hold of for a time, but these moments were fleeting. The rest of the time I was in a state of emergency and panic, hoping beyond all hope that some great figurative ship would come along, see and save me…that is until all hope was lost. 

What do you do when that happens? 

It is during moments like this that some of us stop fighting and we sink. We let ourselves sink right down to the very depths that gravity pulls us to, which for me happened to be far…think “Mariana's Trench” far. What was down there you ask? Nothing but pitch blackness, wavy silhouettes of terrifying creatures drifting in the dark, and the sound of my own voice crying ever so faintly for a life raft. Within so much silent despair and pressure I was able to make out that this was a child with fears and traumas so deep that I was no longer able to ignore her. This was me, my younger me, waiting for a savior, and with no one to help, I alone had to be the one to courageously step into the gap between my adult and child self to do some serious work, which involved mostly listening. It is there that I made some serious pledges and promises. It is there that perhaps for the first time, I began to love and care for myself like no other had been able to. 

When people say that they found themselves, this is no ordinary or straightforward task. This requires digging thru layer after layer of mostly artificially programmed social development to get to the truth of who you are, what you “really” honestly stand for, how you think, feel, and operate. You get clear, very clear, about why your life is not working or aligned with those critical things that you have always stood for, and maybe for the first time, YOU become the hope that you've always been searching for. 

When this happened and I could be there for myself the way I always wanted others to be there for me, some amazing things happened. All the garbage aspects of my life that I tried to see, thru rose colored glasses, really began to stink and I was able to throw out a whole lot of junk that was not serving me. This included people, situations, places, and some physical mementos that I had kept around for far too long! The relief from this process was unimaginable! Suddenly I got lighter and was able to float up effortlessly out of that trench and stay afloat, breathing in endless blue sky and unpolluted air that fed my soul and made me stronger. People who could support me started showing up out of nowhere and stood by my side, as though they were always there, just buried from view. Some of them were tests to make sure I was aligned properly. The failed ones quickly lost their superficial luster and charm. The right ones sparkled! The sparkly ones became beacon points of light. I don't overlook them any longer! They are pretty hard to miss with clean and clear lenses! 

If you have lost hope, take a moment to listen to the voice stirring within. This is the only voice that truly matters. This is YOUR voice. It is your savior.

Trust me when I say that I've allowed this little word “should” to hold me back from more opportunities than I want to admit. In fact it literally ran my life into the ground five years ago when I was just at a point where I could see the open sky and my wings were poised to flap into a sea of unimaginable possibilities. 

But this was not to come. How could it when my life up to that point was built on one should after another: shoulds that were not mine, shoulds that kept me stuck in misery and suffering that I never wanted for myself, shoulds that were destroying my self worth, my sense of safety, my emotional and physical health to the point that I lost sight of who I was, what I was about, why I was here. 

It's hard to build on a dream when it is based in fantasy, not reality? Consequently, when we go along with the shoulds imposed on us we're bound to feel miserable especially in an era when self actualization is possible.Trying to set out on a creative life course, or just any life course, you have to know what YOU want. 

If you are confused about who you are, why you are here, what the purpose of life is, how to get from point A to B, and you can no longer make concrete decisions and are steadily sinking not flying, if your decisions are riddled with self-doubt, anxiety and procrastination, welcome to the academy of life! With a little self reflection and action you can start pointing your nose to the sky and dusting off those wings! 

Start asking yourself:

• Are you getting bogged down by all the shoulds that are not your own?
• Are you doing things and playing roles that are destructive to your spirit just to satisfy someone else's version of what your life should look like? 

Often the loudest voice directing you (or not doing any directing at all) is the one that is not your own. It is someone else's voice, someone else's version of who you should be. The first step is becoming aware of whose voice(s) it is. This is often not pretty, in fact it can lead to a great deal of initial despair, even anger or rage, but at some point you have to take responsibility for yourself and meet the lost self that is buried often under a lot of trash. Once that trash is sorted (what's mine, what's not mine) you can begin to clear enough space to connect and build on the truth of you. 

Many people get lost in this trash heap, but there is a way out, there is light. You keep sorting and digging until you can see a sliver of blue sky and then dig some more until you get out from under it! From there you begin by walking the true YOU road until you can run and eventually fly. 

It took me many years to figure out that something was desperately wrong, then many more to figure out the whys of it all and then the how to's of getting out and back on a road that felt aligned with my true self. Now when I long for advise and direction, I realize that ultimately it's my choice to do things in a way that works best for me. I create my reality and the solid path that weaves thru it! I get to choose the fastest or shortest route, whether to take a straight path, a winding path, or a path less traveled. This is where true liberty lies.