catahoula woman

arizona intuitive 27 year-old navigating what it means to be present and grateful, always

[goldddustdreams]

you changed my life and were around for some of my grandest moments. hiking in pitch black darkness away from the superstitions for the first time with only the moon to guide us, singing in the car with my best friend on the drive to tucson, and crying alone with disappointment from what felt like abandonment at the time—ended up being the best never-ending gift.

“always with that guilt and sadness

some days i would believe it's true

i'll wait for that empty promise

i'll take what i can get from you”

[lazyyogi]

The majority of interpersonal turmoil is caused by blaming other people for our own reactions.

Because reactions feel involuntary, we interpret that feeling as something being done to us. So we feel threatened, attacked, or otherwise violated by our own reactivity.

But the world is not here to accommodate our reactivity. Other people, situations, and even ideas are not responsible for our reactions.

Only we are burdened by our fixed ideas, judgments, personal perspective, and conditioning that congeal to become the scaffolding that manufactures instant body-mind responses in the absence of calm, wakeful presence. Reactivity.

It is our job to become aware of this slavery and free ourselves.

[goldddustdreams]

in a puddle on the bathroom floor, again.

i feel completely overridden with pain, deep grief, and rooted self loathing.

i come to this breaking point so often, i wonder if it’s even pivotal anymore.

the hardest part of this hurdle is childhood trauma that riddles my body every day. my cells are eavesdropping on my thoughts and there’s no sense of urgency. there’s no healing coming from the center of my being because she’s numb. she feels completely devoid of feelings because that was/IS survival to her. i just turn it off. i turn off the emotional pain with ease like a running faucet, but as faucets do - a slow leak reveals i’m not turning anything off at all. water bill is at an all time high and i consistently have. to. pay. up.

there are times where the clouds part, i look st the sky, feel the warmth of the sun, the breeze on my arms and i know that freedom, peace, and health are within reach. it IS attainable and i am capable. the realist in me shuts down the dreamer, the spiritual heart of my soul, because being vulnerable to me has always meant loss. i don’t want to lose anymore. please, God.

i shout all the time, “I HEAR YOU. I AM LISTENING.” it’s my mantra to tell the realist i’m in here. i crave love, attention, vitality, and most of all.. peace.

i hear you, Brooke. i hear you. i hear you. I HEAR YOU. i love you. goodnight.

[goldddustdreams]

life~

to win the game is to exit the simulation.

[goldddustdreams]

i’m listening

compassion is a practice, because it isn’t easy.

practicing compassion for self? even harder.

i have hated these thighs, these arms, my stomach (i could go on) for nearly three years.

painfully angry, internal shouting, incessantly all the while.

and you know what came from that?

my body and mind failing more, impatience, lack of the ability to see right now.

no love given, unable to receive it, and unable to let go of this burden.

it’s heavy, like weights on your ankles and someone sitting on your chest.

but inside i keep yelling “i don’t want to be like this anymore!” - the call for change is LOUD and forthcoming.

i hear you, i’m ready, let’s start healing. for the love of god, please.

[goldddustdreams]

24 days

ever had an experience where someone didn’t know you were near and they spoke poorly of you? it’s a weird kind of sting, but you can’t stop listening because you hardly get to hear someone’s perception of you without a filter.

it made me feel pretty skeezy, to be honest. after i heard it, it took me THREE DAYS to realize that nothing they said about me is honest or true. the fact that it took me so long worries me. maybe i need to refocus on my idea of me.

have to release this and let it go. i hope someday they are cared about so wholly by themselves, that they don’t have to dog someone else to feel good. 24 days and i’m free.

[goldddustdreams]

failure

it’s pretty simple-minded of me to look around and say, “i’ve failed, i’ve failed, i’ve failed.” i’ve been looking for my idea of success in the wrong places - comparable to being offered someone’s last sip of coke which everyone knows is purely backwash and believing that person was being generous.

apply here, Brooke. do this. you didn’t make it for that position but how about this? only to get rejected again. rejection stings and it somehow manages to hurt even when it’s not something you had your heart set on. why is that? or why does it hurt to walk into an interview and the first thing someone says to you is how amazing your partner is? i often forget i’m interviewing the employer too.

i don’t want a secondhand job. i don’t want to be the afterthought applicant. i am a really earnest person and when given the right environment, i thrive and i bloom in ways that surprise even me. i’m not missing opportunities that were meant for me. if it were set for me, i would’ve gotten the job. does that thought shield me from embarrassment or sadness? no. but it tells me to keep digging and to keep assigning myself value. if they won’t, i will.

it’s very expected that people will come and go while warping my reality and expectations. the whole point is that i remember my core beliefs and do my best not to squander them for something shiny, new, and far-fetched because it narrowly touches upon something that might look like “success” to anyone looking in.

i love you, Brooke. you’re a fucking kickass woman and i promise i’ll do a better job of remembering what it is that you really desire. i won’t let you down and we’ll make it.

[goldddustdreams]

“please do this thing because it’s celebrated as the right thing to do and definitely not because i benefit from it”

people are sociopaths, y’all. 1/25 is about right. gonna sleep off the yuck.

[goldddustdreams]

new juicer = all the juice and nice cream my body will allow. thank you, universe!

[goldddustdreams]

knowing my intentions

being the sensitive person that i am, it’s more than easy for me to absorb someone’s desire as my own. my truths leave me, one by one, until none of my original intent is there. that’s why it’s integral that i check myself. am i being bombarded and told what i should want? what i should look like? what i should buy? who i should admire?

when Courtney and i went to San Diego, it was one of those trips where everything fell into place because we had fabricated it as such. our airbnb in La Jolla was NEEDED. not because it was stylish or beautiful, but because of the woman living inside of it, on the second floor in a two-bedroom apartment by herself with her two cats Yin and Yang (Yang was a real charmer and my cat soulmate without a doubt). she had hand selected that life for herself. Terri is a stay at home programmer, who lives ten minutes away from the Pacific Ocean. a woman who thoughtfully places rye bread on the 2nd floor patio for birds while her wind chimes sing her building songs. her warmth is astounding and her home evoked the same. 

while there, Terri asked us if something she was designing on her Mac looked okay. she had asked about the font on a cover of a book that she had WRITTEN. she asked us if we read much and if we believed in the idea that we could materialize our own dreams out of thin air. reviews are something i do often (i’m not kidding - i review everything) - and she asked if that was something i enjoyed and i let out a resounding YES! i love to write about how places, objects, and people make me feel! she gave us each a copy of her book, Blessed n Lucky, in hopes that we’d review and share it. the book is Terri’s story about how she manifested the life she always wanted just by seeking out her equal parts in the universe. things that were meant for HER and her alone. had she manifested us coming that weekend? it felt like it. 

fast forward, i got sun poisoning and i came home feeling like a toasted marshmallow - completely sick and overwhelmed by everything that had happened that weekend at Terri’s. i’ve since been reading Blessed n Lucky and recognizing parts of my life that run parallel to the words i’m reading. ever have a book soften your edges? i felt that while scanning the pages of a woman who had encountered miracles because she and others were brave enough to ASK for them and knew their intentions were pure and specific. you could have anything you wanted as long as it was meant for you!

Terri warns in this book that your manifestations come to you every day and sometimes in ways you won’t expect. intentions are huge part of receiving gifts from the universe and so is your AUTHENTIC DESIRE. if it’s not meant for you and you ask for it - it will NEVER bring you the peace you are seeking. i’m slowly learning this after being raised in a home that only garnered me bad news, negative thought loops, and traumas - in excess. but i had to realize, i had already created so much, even with that kind of background looming! i was/am destined for greatness. if great to no one else - for me! i manifested my life in Arizona by asking angels to guide me (Claire), found someone who loves me after years of thinking i’d be alone forever! how amazing right? and the more you recognize your blessings, the more you’ll have to encounter. i’m looking toward my blessings. dropping my anger - and i can’t wait to love what the universe has coming to me.

[goldddustdreams]

all that’s missing is a pumpkin and apple cider.

[goldddustdreams]

way too often we appreciate the art that is a result of someone’s dark place while neglecting the darkness.

[goldddustdreams]

i remember the first time i heard cut copy on pandora (i was on empire of the sun radio) and it was 2012. i was working the desk at stu west - my residence hall at BSU - and i wrote down their name on a post it. when i went to my room later that day, i looked them up and listened to “bright like neon love”, “in ghost colors”, and “free your mind” followed in 2013. it was an album that helped me get through school and a watercolor class where i knew NO ONE. for part of my birthday present, Ari got us tickets to see cut copy at crescent ballroom. cut copy is from melbourne so getting to see them was a fuckin’ treat. this is the first time i’ve been close enough to a city to see them! they were incredible - as expected. the show was sold out so we had to sit on bleachers but that was a huge blessing in disguise. we had a straight shot view of Dan and it was fantastic. several times during the show, i just closed my eyes and soaked in every feeling. goosebumps and shivers ahhhh!!!!

[goldddustdreams]

after two

years gone wrong in all ways imaginable - i finally feel as though the way i look at the universe and everything in her is returning back to the magic i once saw in 2015. very obviously not the same, but beautiful, nonetheless, again. i have endured a lot of “odd trauma” that set me in a place that was eerily similar to the environment of a fishbowl. i was watching everyone around me moving and living and i was at almost standstill physically, emotionally, and spiritually -  halted in time. i felt as though i had begged for help, but none came for me still.

 it’s funny how when you go through incredibly horrid times, it’s like you get to watch yourself suffer from a third person perspective. it’s unbelievably embarrassing and on the real, it’s really not funny at all. leads you to thinking some of the most self-destructive thoughts you could ever imagine. luckily, in all that’s happened, i’ve only ever thought dying would be better once. thank god, Carmella brought me subway on the afternoon of my assumed death. i’m remembering what it is to be amazed by small and simple things around me. investing in friends i really adore and putting the goddamn phone down because holy shit. if you look up once in a while - you might figure out how to escape the entrapment that is the endless and carefully planned algorithm scroll.

there’s still this small voice in me that shouts for me to share everything i fucking do. so that’s where this comes in. i don’t have to yell about my life into the void. i can carefully and intricately tell my stories the way that i want to (again) without fear of people, who don’t know me but follow me and are too lazy to ask how i’m doing, quietly making opinions of me from a distance. at least here, you have to work to get to it and make an effort to read it. spoon feeding people you don’t give a shit about is not fulfilling and that’s what the internet seems to thrive off of. so here i am trying to evade the machine and anyone involved in that spirit killing business. here we go.