Hippie Mermaid Wanders

Free-spirited; Exploring life, one island at a time

[beeyondthesea]

Sometimes it seems like you are rhe only one in the world who’s struggling, who’s frustrated, unsatisfied, barely getting by. But that feeling’s a lie. And if you just hold on, just find the courage to face it all for another day, someone or something will find you and makeit all okay. Because we all need a little help sometimes- someone to help us hear the music in their world in their world, ti remind us that it won’t always be this way. That someone is out there. And that someone will find you.

[beeyondthesea]

this year, I succumbed to an intense personal development retreat. Too hesitant at first so I noted the most important and only criterion: catharsis. I think thats what I got and more. Its been powerful to dialogue with my unconscious. I tend to find deep moments of introspection boring, yet I always seem to realise that life would have been unbearable had I not endured them. Our truths are our tools. Our stories are our springboards. But fears, exhaustion and pain come on occasion and hide our true power from us. This is why we retreat. This is why we dig deep. To remember who we are and what we’re made of. To know that we are not only our fears, or fame, or failures. To peak inside and discover that we are always, always so much more at the core. When youre finally aware of your own fullness, of the gaping galaxies you hold inside, all your problems and worries seem to boil down to this: “What am I planning to do with all this light?” May 2019 be the year of YOU. besides, you shouldn’t mind being a little selfish if incites you become a happy giver. ☺️ Step into the light with me?

[beeyondthesea]

Soften a little, the struggle wants to shape you....

Do you ever feel as though you are at once fighting through existence and flowing through it. There has to be a word for this state- when every fiber of your being now understands that life is hard but, finally, you don’t mind it. When the difficulty at last meets your readiness, the readiness to face it and to accept and learn from whatever it serves you, and to let the experience humble the fuck out of you. You recognize these moments when you do something true/brave- perhaps, nearly crazy- but this time, instead of the usual urge to panic and cower back, you take the leap headlong, and even be the first person to tell you “everything will be ok” . It’s tempting to fight yourself due to the stress that comes with the difficulty and uncertainty life presents, but it is precisely in these moments you need you to back you up. It is all a journey, they say- may I add, a whole lot different when you are kinder to yourself. If you’re going to fight your way through life you might as well be on YOUR team. Be easy on you as you are becoming.

[beeyondthesea]

“I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean”

I tend to speak of my late twenties with a cautionary tone and though it honestly came with the realest struggles, I may have never told you that I have thoroughly enjoyed it- especially the part when I lost and won and eventually owned the many battles put in my way. And for that, it’s been rich.

They tell you that your early twenties are your prime but something tells me that my late twenties are the years I will always remember and will really, really miss when I get older. I feel more adjusted to life at this point, even though it still didn’t give me the seat I truly wanted. I’m now more aware that growth is a bumpy ride and adulating is hard- but there is also a genuine acceptance of that and solid action plans to match. In these years, you seem to understand the world and the people around you better, but not so much that it leaves you feeling like you’ve seen everything and want to settle. You’re a lot stronger and smarter, but in many ways, still a student and a starter. There’s still more work to be done, more lessons to be had, love to be given, and art to be made. Only it feels like for the first time in a long time, you’re a lot less afraid.

[beeyondthesea]

Don’t Feed Your Monsters

As to how we adults can hold a grudge is always beyond me. It’s a weird thing to tote around, a grudge. It’s heavy, and hot, and harrowing. And yet we haul them inside like its a prized thing. There must be something I’m missing. I feel sorry sometimes. For being hurt and fascinated at the same time when I feel the heat of someone’s hate. What is appealing about tending to a grudge? Maybe because it reminds us that we are the victims, that we’ve been the ones wronged or wounded. A grudge can affirm that we stood by something. That there were comfort and kindness we craved and believed in before someone failed us. Somehow, there’s soothing dignity in that. But is there really? Or is it just an illusion? It’s an illusion because grudges can’t always hold us up. Nothing that perpetuates hate can hold us up. It morphs into something that eventually eats us inside more than it eases us.

  The antidote, I learned, is not exactly to forgive others quickly. Rather, it’s about moving your focus away from your “wounders” first. Grudges are stories we tell ourselves of which the plot is that this specific other should have been kinder to us or given us what we needed. It plays this narrative over and over and traumatizes us again and again. The idea is to be alone in “your” presence first. Take your time to listen to your grudge’s bemoaning, and see if you can fill in the thing it so desperately asks. You’ve been wanting it from someone for so long but have you ever thought of stepping in to give that thing to you? Because that’s possible too. And maybe even more satisfying. That’s the beauty of being your own provider. When you’re first to love you, every other love you get feels less like an order and more like a gift. Maybe, just maybe, if you treat yourself this way, things will be easier to forgive. And maybe this is how your rid of this world of monsters- by first freeing the one from your own cage.

[beeyondthesea]

September

Those born in September are raised by bad weather

and given a proclivity for patience,

taught by typhoons and moons,

the good old monsoons.

when the wind howled,

we whistled.

and no alarming amount of rain can wash the will or the way of wonderment.

from getting so used to torrential hardship and being awarded with wisdom

from having aged.

unbeaten

yet another time.

[beeyondthesea]

like how the flowers trust the sun, i look over at you and see the sunshine 🌻

[beeyondthesea]

Many days we're battling for clarity, sanity, stability. And on clearer days, we give ourselves a little tap on the back. That the day was alright, and alright is good.

[beeyondthesea]

You formed yourself into my habit, like daily coffee cups.

[beeyondthesea]

Suffering through your fears and anxieties is what allows you to build courage and perseverance.

[beeyondthesea]

I am thankful for all the things I never wanted to experience. The things I cried out against, and the ones that have felt nothing but unfair. What I want is oftentimes not what I need in the first place, and it’s through these experiences, and not getting things my way, I’ve grown the most.

[beeyondthesea]

Once again, I;m reminded it doesn’t take a lot to know what true beauty is. You know it by the way you can’t imagine it existing any other way. It is pure. It owns itself. It has gone through a lot, and yet it endures. It converts to pleasure and joy, and a good memory; and sometimes even wealth. It is self-preserving. 

This is an education for the creator in me. Salamat, Siargao,

[beeyondthesea]

It doesn’t get easier in your “late twenties”. You will start to have more panic attacks. But this is also why you wise up and choose optimism. Not because optimism is safe and fuzzy - it’s not - but because you will need a technique. If life is the hellish thing it’s cracked up to be, then everything else is way through the fire. We get hopeful and confident not as a means of concealing but a way of dealing. Optimism is a technique that breeds not just survival, more essentially, a sense of aliveness. 

[beeyondthesea]

Poetry helps heal wounds. It makes them tangible.

[beeyondthesea]

Is It Good?

I've been wrestling with big ideas lately, and whenever I feel too small to face them, I find myself guided by the question: is this good for my soul?

I cannot claim to know what my soul is, and I do not know why I must search for things that are good for it, but I am always brought to a better place because of it. As if the universe grew arms to give me a hug.

So it's yes to things that offer some sort of transcendental leisure: a funny book, saying sorry, a cup of coffee, a squeeze of the hand in assurance.

[beeyondthesea]

I hope one day we find each other again and laugh at whatever pain we might have caused.

[beeyondthesea]

Let them

Let them talk behind your back. Let them gossip and jeer in the privacy of their group chats. Because that’s where they’re safe. That’s where cowards hide. Take comfort in the fact that they don’t know you, your fears and struggles, your loss and triumphs, or your dreams for the future. But you, you know you. And keep believing and trusting in you. Continue to be despite their misguided judgments. Because the true courageous act is reaching out, communicating, and knowing someone else instead of taking the easy route of backbiting.