How to make up with a teenager - Day 2 of 30 day writing challenge

30-Day writing challenge through Kale & Cigarettes (500 words)

The best way to make up with a teenage girl is to just give her back her electronics and not care if she is watching the Vampire Diaries instead of doing homework. At least she ripped pages out of the Twilight book earlier today in her boredom, so we have a clue. Vampires. That is probably the whole issue. I remember when I was fascinated by them myself.

you really do know nothing

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Living vicariously - Day 1 of 30 day writing challenge

30-Day writing challenge through Kale & Cigarettes (500 words)

Joslyn Hamilton made me do this. Or her babies did—the two cute new twins whom I have yet to meet but feel like I have. I am living vicariously through her Instagram photos and Facebook videos. Actually I’m reliving my own 3-babies-in-a-row life before I was on social media.

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Behind the eyes of a writer™: A series, part nineteen

Behind the eyes of a writer™: A series, part nineteen

Continuing on from a shield strong as stone, watch time stand still with me.

...where words come from

Here, as I type, you are close.
(you are just on the other side of my sentences).

You are watching my face
trying to figure out where words
come from.

You know that I only allow
the true words to come out
to define me,
the ones that have a heart
and smile with me, knowing I said it right.

© 2014 R.E.L. Copywriting

When you're addicted to technology (and you detox, but then need to come back home)

don't come back, just stay there

Originally posted on my Medium account.

you love vacations but you take your smartphone too

What could be worse than coming home from a vacation after successfully detoxing yourself from the everyday technology that rules your life?

You think you need it. You think you are so important and if you go without your updates or reads for an hour, you have a panic attack thinking that people will think you’re slacking off, you’ll lose your digital follower-gathering momentum or something horrible will happen to you—like you will be completely ignored and lonely in the world.

technology addiction—is it real?

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Not ready before your time: Be kept awhile longer where you are mine alone and I am only yours

image: Holly Dawn DeLeonI am inspired by this writing by Toko-Pa which sends me into a new place, all while I’m set on focusing on that which I need to do in this moment. I’m not sure what that is actually; I’m letting life guide me, distracted or not.

Do not be ready before your time.
There’s no knowing what symmetry is marshalling itself below this confusion.
First the long attentiveness of listening must be paid.
Don’t brave your way out of this husk while it serves to protect your impressionability.
Let yourself be kept a while longer in these origins where you are mine alone and I am only yours.
Let something sweet be made of our secret.
Put not your offering into the world too soon.
Let it ripen in the guardianship of your trepidation.
Let this fallow time be stretched, for it is in this unreadiness that beauty takes its form.
…You will need to remember what grace was allowed only by your long staying hidden.

I have been ready since the first time I can remember. It was the night I told you so. And this never stopped. But being hidden has allowed me to listen. I listen to what I’ve trapped inside me. I move it around and it speaks. I can always stand the reason to go on, not listening to impatience that unfolds at the seams of a story I remember—each day. Our story was never over. I’m still here in our secret, yet I am offering bit by bit, in the stream of your words still echoing in my brain. You are burned into my brain. Could it be that I am yours. Yes. I am in one wing of our eternal breeze blown to you.

Originally posted on my Medium account @relcopywriting

© 2014 R.E.L. Copywriting

Distracted by anxiety until disruptive energy is discharged: Yoga and psychology

I am distracted often. Yes, it gets in my way when I feel I’ll be in trouble if I don’t accomplish a certain goal. Yet, with my life of freedom—more so, the art of distraction itself—I wouldn’t have it any other way. There is a beauty and inherent intelligence in distraction.

anxiety

Why does a distracted mind cause anxiety? So many people are taking medication for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) as if to cure this ailment; it’s as if they are being taught that they cannot live adequately in our society without the maximum ability to hone in on a specific task and fulfill it without question, without delay. It’s now, or else.

Why is this? People with ADHD focus intensely on their own topic of interest. They are highly focused. They are exceedingly intelligent because of thisdisordered ability to focus. This activity is peaceful because it is naturally-driven and full of integrity.

Don’t we each want to live a life that is fused with our innate, inner desires?

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Lady with the red pants: When yoga is humiliating

Originally posted on Recovering Yoga Novemeber 2010, and later on my Medium account.

I was once called Lady with the Red Pants by a strict yoga teacher with whom I’d been practicing yoga for 6 years.

humiliation from across the room

She called out to me from across the room with this name to give me a simple instruction. I, an avid student in her class for all those years, surely felt that I deserved more respect than this.

True, it wasn’t exactly her nature to speak to her students and thereby get to know their names. And although I knew this, and never myself attempted to introduce myself or speak to her—ever, in fact—I still felt angry at this label she gave to me. I did know for sure that I was a dedicated yogini, attending her classes regularly, and considered myself a personally powerful person, so at the time I took this comment with a grain of salt. I laughed to myself.

Sometimes I tell this story to others. But just today, I decided that I have given this imagery (and emotion) of that situation in my past too much real estate in my brain! For, the pants themselves tell the story whenever I see them. I never wear them anymore, yet I still keep them. I tell myself that I definitely have to be in the mood to wear them.

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Give yourself permission to hesitate, retreat or go for it

sketch by Taryn VarnesYou don't have to know why. Just follow your first gut instinct. It's usually your best bet. Even if it drives your hesitation, perception, concern or intrigue unconsciously, it knows you.

I couldn't help but stop on this quote just now, that I've seen before: 

Give yourself permission to immediately walk away from anything that gives you bad vibes. There is no need to explain or make sense of it. Just trust the little inner voice when it talks to you. 

~Sonia Choquette

Yes, exactly. There need not be any guilt or need for explanation. Along these same lines is the current audio book I'm listening to: Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, which goes into this concept in great detail. The thing is... I don't need to hear the cutting edge neuroscientific detail. I already believe. I already get it.

The spirit of your feeling or thought—call it psychic if you want—is simplistic in nature. It knows in the blink of a eye. 

© 2014 R.E.L. Copywriting