My PDC just sent this to me. It is absolutely essential to where I am at right now. I took a few hours off of writing to be a mom and before getting back to writing tonight, wanted to re-post this (for those keeping track, I'm at 150pgs). Just remember how important and powerful choice is. It can affect love, disdain, everything. Much like "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", it is possible to erase a memory or at least change your emotional reaction to a situation or a trauma. I am going the Spotless Mind route: light therapy to erase, or rather shift, a recent relationship in order to move forward. One valuable lesson I'm learning is to be very careful who you befriend or allow in your life. When you're on the road to success, people will come in and try to knock you off course. Be stronger than that, stronger than them. In the end the real friends, the really valuable people in your life will be there and when you can't always spend time together, it never changes the core of your relationship. Real is real. Period. 

While this post is more Eastern Philosophy, it applies to success, to people, to art. All of my artist friends know exactly what this means. It seems in order to be a real artist, one must endure a tremendous amount of suffering. I always remember the torment Einstein endured. The fact that Walt Disney was fired twice for "lacking creativity and imagination". People, the people who cannot fathom you will do exactly what you dream, will try and tear you down and tell you "you can't". Who cares what they say! They are miserable, unhappy people who tear you down because they 1)lack imagination, 2) are too self-absorbed to imagine you'll do what they can never achieve, 3) live in a gossip, insane bubble that allows them to "try" and judge you, put you down because they clearly haven't the gull or intellect or will to do what you are doing. Nay-sayers exist for the sole purpose to prove them wrong. They are not the exception. YOU ARE. Artists, you know who you are, remember the things others have endured and you will know you are on the right path. The more people tell you, "you can't" the more you should know, "you will".  Jealousy rears its head at every turn. Mediocrity is not the artist's "M.O." - determination, endurance, and the mere knowledge that they will - and can - achieve something miraculous is why we do what we do in the first place.

To live means to suffer, because the human nature is not perfect and neither is the world we live in. During our lifetime, we inevitably have to endure physical suffering such as pain, sickness, injury, tiredness, old age, and eventually death; and we have to endure psychological suffering like sadness, fear, frustration, disappointment, and depression. Although there are different degrees of suffering and there are also positive experiences in life that we perceive as the opposite of suffering, such as ease, comfort and happiness, life in its totality is imperfect and incomplete, because our world is subject to impermanence. This means we are never able to keep permanently what we strive for, and just as happy moments pass by, we ourselves and our loved ones will pass away one day, too.

The origin of suffering is attachment to transient things and the ignorance thereof. Transient things do not only include the physical objects that surround us, but also ideas, and -in a greater sense- all objects of our perception. Ignorance is the lack of understanding of how our mind is attached to impermanent things. The reasons for suffering are desire, passion, ardour, pursuit of wealth and prestige, striving for fame and popularity, or in short: craving and clinging. Because the objects of our attachment are transient, their loss is inevitable, thus suffering will necessarily follow. Objects of attachment also include the idea of a "self" which is a delusion, because there is no abiding self. What we call "self" is just an imagined entity, and we are merely a part of the ceaseless becoming of the universe.

The cessation of suffering can be attained through nirodha. Nirodha means the unmaking of sensual craving and conceptual attachment. The third noble truth expresses the idea that suffering can be ended by attaining dispassion. Nirodha extinguishes all forms of clinging and attachment. This means that suffering can be overcome through human activity, simply by removing the cause of suffering. Attaining and perfecting dispassion is a process of many levels that ultimately results in the state of Nirvana. Nirvana means freedom from all worries, troubles, complexes, fabrications and ideas. Nirvana is not comprehensible for those who have not attained it.

There is a path to the end of suffering - a gradual path of self-improvement, which is described more detailed in the Eightfold Path. It is the middle way between the two extremes of excessive self-indulgence (hedonism) and excessive self-mortification (asceticism); and it leads to the end of the cycle of rebirth. The latter quality discerns it from other paths which are merely "wandering on the wheel of becoming", because these do not have a final object. The path to the end of suffering can extend over many lifetimes, throughout which every individual rebirth is subject to karmic conditioning. Craving, ignorance, delusions, and its effects will disappear gradually, as progress is made on the path.

For more on this: http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/fourtruths.html

It takes a lot to write what I do. It takes a lot to trust others with the darkest, most vulnerable parts of oneself. It takes a lot to recover from death and abuse and being misunderstood - regularly. It takes a lot to write about a painful relationship and still somehow find some redemption in it. I am driven. I have focus. But I have feelings. 80% of you seem to respond to that and in some way it makes you feel like maybe you can have more courage to speak your mind. Like you're not alone. The problem is when you speak your mind, someone is always going to take it personally. See themselves in it too closely. There's no way to avoid it nor can I. But it hurts. 

Going through this relationship that just ended - harshly - was more painful than I ever expected it to be. I trusted a situation. I should have trusted myself. Difficult to swallow at times. And this breakup, as harsh as it was the 6th time it happened, played too much on my belief that people are innately good and loving. It's not easy to realize that it isn't true. And yet somehow, in spite of it all, I still have to believe people are. This break up followed a divorce. And while my ex-husband and I are incredibly good friends, the heart was raw. Divorce, even nice ones, still make you feel like you've failed. Add children to the mix and you feel like you've done something awful. I needed to recover from the first failure but I believed. I needed to and these blogs, these comments, it's my soul exposed, blood dripping, completely wounded. When you move on and convince yourself it's going to be better and come to see that the thing you believed, the notion of optimism and hope becomes a total lie, it rips your heart out. And, in the process, I have found that there are only a couple of friends that will really listen and love you when you're feeling totally broken. And so because its in my nature to want to be there for everyone else, I don't let many people be there for me because when I do, well, it just hurts. Hurts when you feel like maybe it's unimportant. Still, when life throws you into a brick wall, your flesh feels like its barely dangling, you find another outlet. I write about it. It's my way to feel like I'm not going to implode. I don't speak every thought in my head like literary diarrhea or write every time something bad happens but if I block it, if I don't speak up, if I don't admit that I feel like a complete fool because I chose to ignore every telltale sign, I'm lying to myself. I'm not being a very good example to my daughter if I start lying to myself.

So I'd like to ask for a little understanding. Empathy. An emotion not many openly embrace. You can judge me if you want because god knows I can say "that was purple" and somehow someone will hear "you look like a squished grape". There is only so much I can do. Only so much I can keep inside. I try to do the right thing regularly. I'd take a bullet for any one of my true friends. I'd sadly probably take a bullet for a stranger if I thought they were a decent enough human being. So when I'm broken, weak, angry, I rant. I write. And I share it with you because a long time ago I made a deal. If it makes it way to paper, it is no longer mine.

So you can read my posts and get angry at me for having opinions and being faulty and for not letting someone off the hook. I will always move forward. Always find my strength again. I'm not in this to gain popularity or win some sort of "like me" contest. I do what I do because I will make this world a better place whether that's by calling someone out or exposing my "crazy" or saying to someone who I feel did wrong, "you were wrong". I'm imperfect. I'm a writer. I have a responsibility to stick with writing the way I do because it's all a very significant growing process. Does that mean I get impulsive and just "react", yes. But honestly, knowing even one person feels like, because I write something that might make me look like an idiot, allows them to find some solace in what I've said, that's enough for me. Change doesn't happen in one fell swoop. Change happens slowly, one thought, one word - nasty or kind or vacant or deep or funny or random - at a time. I can't "make" anyone see who I am. The only way to do that is time and my previous blogs have been more about realizing that I wasn't being seen. I was being type-casted. 

Before you get too involved in this post - I am speaking my mind. Which means I am not keeping my heartache a secret. Sort of the way writers do things. They open up. They expose themselves and while some will hear the "he", I hope they actually have the know-how to realize this is about MY healing. Not about the person who played the part. He is a good man. We are simply a bad match. We are VERY different. Regardless of my venting, I am not speaking ill of him. He is a lovely person. The way we are together is bad, but that is the way we are TOGETHER. Not who he is on his own because he is a good friend (well, when we were friends) and a great entrepreneur and don't ever misunderstand my venting as anything else. This is the forum to speak my mind. If I didn't love him, I wouldn't be hurt. I did and I do and regardless of how careless we have both been, I am merely speaking about the hurt of a relationship that was bad. If you know "him" who will now only be referred to as Big Bird, try to remember this is not about him. This is about my journey as a person, a writer, a human being, a woman. I'm trying to figure my s*** out and if you have a hard time with that, I'm sorry. My relationship hurt my soul. Our differences are simply that. Again, have the "know-how" to understand that. I am a writer. Not a ballerina.

This was my Facebook status today. Why? Because I have realized that there were times in my life where I thought things happened "to" me and while certainly things do happen that you have no control over, nothing happens "to" you. It happens around you. There is no point playing the martyr or acting like you're the victim. That's the most ridiculous route to take but like everyone, I have definitely fallen into that. I almost did it this time. I allowed myself to get back into a relationship I had no business being in (primarily because I should have taken time to heal after my divorce, but it seemed like the right person and sometimes things happen) and rather than admitting it wasn't the right time, I gave into emotions and feelings and want and lost a friend of 8 years. A relationship that only ever should have been friendly. We crossed the line and forced something to "work" when the universe was giving us every sign to not go forward. We didn't listen. I didn't listen. I have never experienced anything quite like it in that the highs were high and the lows were SO low. We brought out the best and the worst in one another which led to catastrophe.