We all have good intentions when it comes to our goals in life. When we first set out to accomplish one, we feel motivated and energized. They create a purpose for us and we can even picture what life would be like when it is completed. Think about a few of yours. Maybe it’s to fix up your home. Or to build a garden and plant vegetables. Or to write a book. When I began writing my memoir, the writing flowed like water in a river. I cranked out scene after scene and continued with this momentum for the better part of a year. But after about a year, my writing trickled to the equivalent of a dried-up creek. Why does that happen? What occurs in our lives or blocks us from successfully completing one of our well-intentioned and important goals? 

“It is the problem of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing.” ~William Faulkner

I have a problem and it is two-folds. I am a perfectionist with the awareness that I am a perfectionist. Why is this a problem? Because once you are aware of somthing you deem a flaw about yourself, then you have the responsibility to change it. Unfortunately, it isn’t so easy.

We’ve all been there. Surfing the web and being hit by non-subtle advertisements for something that you had no idea existed but now are ready to make a spontaneous purchase just because it looks so darn cute. Or practical. Or efficient. 

We all can remember the last time our equilibrium fell by the wayside. Maybe it was overindulgence in some tempting libations or fancy food one night. Maybe it was an overzealous gym workout and the next day the soreness in your muscles caused slow and cumbersome movements. Maybe it was even that one time (or several) when Netflix got the better of you and before long, you lost track of time and watched the entire season of a show in one sitting. Whatever the vice, I bet you could kick yourself afterwards.  

On a recent walk in my neighborhood, I noticed something that got me thinking of the human condition. I live in an area where the houses sit side by side and an unlined road cuts through the neighborhood. Driveways lead to garages or front doors and the grass on some lawns is so high that outside cats lounge in the grassy fields without having to worry about being seen. There aren’t any designated sidewalks for pedestrians so I have to walk on the roads that wind throughout the neighborhood, vigilant of cars that appear from all the intersections.

The human mind is more powerful than we can ever fathom. When you start to filter in positive thoughts, your life will begin to transform. ~Buddha

Life tends to either build you up or knock you down, and we never know which one it will be at any given moment. The latter seems to be happening to me lately. I am caught in a chaotic swirl of the universe’s energy that caused a series of bad luck events. All of them happening within a three-month span knocked me down for the count. I didn’t want to get back up. I wanted to lay on the ground, hiding from the world so that nothing else could get me.

When one negative event after another gives you the proverbial punch in the face, it can be hard to think clearly or rationally. Emotions tend to take control and make everything worse. The mind starts spiraling into a paranoid view of the world. “What else is going to happen?” haunts your thoughts, despite your best efforts to remain positive.

I started this website to focus on loss and the complicated relationship it has with grief, depression, and loneliness. The rollercoaster of emotions that naturally comes along with losing a loved one or something in your life that you cared deeply about sends you to parts of yourself that you would rather forget existed. The grief inevitably brings out feelings that once lay dormant and then hijacks every part of your body, brain, and heart.

I have also written about how I have learned to use new-found tools and support from others to overcome the challenges and paralyzing effects grief creates. From podcasts I have listened to, to books I have read, to supportive friends, family, colleagues and healing retreats, I spent the better part of two years trying to figure out how to heal.

Two years ago, in December of 2021 I spent the Christmas and New Year’s holidays by myself, exploring the countryside and cities of North Carolina, searching for places to feel like I belonged, for a place I could call my home. It was a tumultuous time for me. I was still grieving and trying to heal from the loss of my husband and my life in an unexpected divorce. My heart leaked with failure, depression, and pain. My mind urged me to run far away from the pain and memories of my past. 

“Do not dwell in the past. Do not dream of the future. Concentrate the mind on the present moment.” ~Buddha

“Life begins on the other side of despair.” ~ Jean-Paul Sartre 

When what appeared to be my forever life crumbled before my eyes a few years ago, I couldn’t see a way out of my despair and pain. All the memories, conversations, trips, and Netflix binges vanished along with my husband’s love, my house, and my happiness. I couldn't imagine a life without my husband. I had formed habits and routines around the life that he and I had created. I had been in a comfort bubble with no desire to leave. 

The pain and grief we feel when we lose a loved one to death or divorce is one of the most intense feelings we will ever have. The emotion literally feels like physical pain. Like a hammer came down on your foot or a brick just fell on your chest. If you’re human, you have experienced these things and have developed ways to cope that work the best for you personally. 

Rejection happens to everyone. It can come in the form of being overlooked for a promotion or being turned down by a potential date. Rejection happens to me quite frequently. This type of rejection is not work related, relationship related, or health related. It’s the rejection that comes from literary magazines where I send a piece of myself, of my writing, to potentially be shared with a bigger audience. No one else, except for me, or a few close people I choose to share it with, know about it.

“You must give up the life you planed in order to have the life that is waiting for you.” Joseph Campbell

When I got married, I thought my life was going to be predictable. My husband and I had our own hobbies, habits, routines, and traditions that we introduced to each other and we were starting our own together. I enjoyed cooking and baking new healthy food from the YouTube channels I watched, I did Yoga, and I worked out probably way too much. My husband played Magic the Gathering online and in person, went fishing, played other video games, and was part of the Men’s rugby league in our city. We were both teachers and had the same days and summers off. Every few years we would go to the Florida Keys to fish, snorkel, and kayak. We visited our family in the summer and at Christmas. His parents would come to spend Thanksgiving with us. I couldn’t imagine, nor did I want to imagine, anything other than that. It was familiar, comfortable, and safe.

Have you ever felt that you lacked any and all motivation to do anything? When it comes to motivation, I feel like it’s a game that keeps wanting to be played. Some days motivation comes easily and you’re winning at life. Then other days, you lose all desire to do anything and can’t remember your toast left in your toaster. Are there any solutions to this back-and-forth tug-of-war? 

I’ve read countless books and listened to more podcasts than a pharmacy as drugs and I still haven’t discovered the secret to being motivated all the time. But maybe that’s not the point. We are humans after all, not machines that can function 24-7. With the societal pressure to “be on” all the time, it can be hard to remember that we are humans and not our phones. 

I’d like to share five tips on ways to win at the game against motivation. These tips may or may not work for you, but I've found that they are certainly worth trying because otherwise, I would be scrolling on my phone for an hour looking at funny cat videos. 

“I think everyone should attend a grief retreat at least once in their lives,” I told my friend asking me how the experience of attending a loss and transformation retreat was. “It should be required for navigating tough times.”

As humans, grief is an inevitable part of life. When we open ourselves up to love, we risk losing it. In October of 2022, I went on a life-changing trip to Bolinas, CA to a house of hope and healing called Commonweal. There, I delved deeper into the grief over my mother’s death and my marriage’s failure. During the course of six days, I met wonderful women from all over the country, from all walks of life, and who were experiencing their own personal loss and seeking the same things as me: to feel loved, to be heard, to squelch the loneliness, and to heal.

When I was five years old, my mother enrolled me in a local majorette’s group for kids my age. I whined to her that I didn’t like it and wanted to quit, but she “forced” me to go so I could learn how to twirl and toss and spin a long metal bar with two knobs on either end like her. She was the “best in the school,” said my grandparents. But I was not like my mother. I was uncoordinated, dropped the baton, and had a hard time paying attention. During the parade my group marched in, I carried the banner with our group name on it because I wasn’t good enough to walk and twirl with the others. I quit after the parade.

There is a story in the Buddhist tradition about a clay statue of the Buddha in a monastery in Thailand. Over the years, it was protected in the monastery from outside invaders. One day while it was being relocated, one of the monks spotted a crack in the clay. When the monk looked closer, he noticed that underneath the clay there was solid gold. The clay statue had been made of gold the whole time!

The sway of the instructor’s hips mesmerized me. Jingling like bells, the tassels of her dress sashayed in rhythm with her hips as she twisted and turned. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her flawless figure, her precise foot fall, the way her shoulders sliced through the air as she maneuvered across the dance floor. At that moment, I fell in love with belly dancing.

     At thirty-six years old, my belly roiled with nerves about taking my first formal dance classes. I had enjoyed dancing since I first watched Britney Spears and the boy bands in middle school. When I moved to music—even if I were alone in front of my dresser mirror--a feeling of longing washed over me. When I dance to music, confidence eclipses my fears, and I move into a natural rhythm even though I have no formal training. 

I knew something changed when I looked back on the person I was a year ago and don’t even recognize her. When I think of being married, the idea is a foreign concept for me. It feels like being in the in-between-state of a dream and consciousness, not knowing quite where I am for a moment. Except I never really wake up completely. I’m constantly in the state of fog and fuzzy, the “almost aware” phase. 

You would think something like being married would be hard to forget. Afterall, I was with the person for nine years and married for four and a half. I constantly have to look down at my left hand as a reminder. The two bands of metal that once snuggly encircled the flesh are gone and my finger feels exposed and empty. 

Joy. That small but powerful word inspires so much within us. We think of so many things that bring joy to our lives: Our children, our friends, our favorite movie, a song, a good meal, the people we love. It inspires us to pursue our passions, motivates us to move forward in our dreams, and has the power to evoke smiles on our faces.

Are joy and happiness the same? Can you have one without the other? Joy and happiness are different. Joy is an internal sensation of happiness. It is not an instant feeling of gratification. It happens over time and through conscious effort. Joy is when we can be our authentic selves and it lasts much longer than happiness.

I’ve recently realized something that I wish I could tell my younger self: I am worthy. I am confident. I am enough. It took more than twenty years to get to this point, but as I’ve come to realize, the journey takes precedence over the destination. With time, experience, and wisdom, most people can find the elusive “happiness” by looking withing themselves and not relying on others.

Do things happen for a reason, or do things happen and we find reasons for them? That question has been on my mind lately. I always thought the former was true, but now, I wonder if it’s not the latter. There are so many things that happen in life that have no logical explanation. Losing my mother at age six is an example. That single incident changed the trajectory of every aspect of my life and many other lives.

I asked why all of my life, but never really got a clear answer. I began speculating on reasons for such a tragic loss. To make me stronger, wiser, more appreciative of how fragile life is? To never take life for granted? To challenge me in some way? My mother’s death could not have been for nothing, could it? It couldn’t have been some cruel joke played by a God who claims love over revenge, or a horrible random occurrence set in motion by the universe. There has to be a reason somewhere.

I was lying on the floor, curled in a ball, crying another ocean. It was the third time that day I found myself in that position. Constant memories attacked me like BB pellets I couldn’t escape. The tears threatened to drown me.

The memories were of my former life, the one when I was married, had a house, a dog, a loving and caring husband. In those moments of uncontrollable sobs, I missed him terribly.

I thought about reaching out to my sister or my counselor, anyone to get the inundation of feelings out of me. I considered screaming and punching something, but since I work from home and my apartment is fairly small, I thought better of that. Then I thought of the one thing that I have always had throughout my life when I’m going through something that crushes me: writing.