We are all hoarders at one level or another.

 When my mother died, my sister cleaned a walking path before I even got there. Being two days travel and being somewhat estranged from her, I did not visit much...clearly. I am unsure what I could have done because any cleaning I had done when I visited in previous years was refilled, sometimes to an even greater height. I learned, eventually, not to clean for her but to try to simply spend time with her. That was over 20 years ago.

As I was looking over my to-do list for today, I tried not to feel overwhelmed with all the activities on my plate. As I looked up, noticing my messy office, (the one I've been telling myself for the last few months I was going to declutter) my mother's house came to mind. "I'm not a hoarder!" I have been telling myself. And inside the definition of hoarder (a person who compulsively accumulates, saves, and hides large amounts of items--resulting in significant clutter that impairs their living spaces, safety and daily life.), I'm not...or so I thought.

Maybe my living space is not at hoarder level but my mind is cluttered with "large amounts" of items resulting in significant emotional and mental impairment of my daily life. Never mind the safety of how I think about myself and others. 

Fear and anger have always been my go tos when it came to my "reactions." I have learned, through much effort and practice, how to react less and respond more. It became clear to me today how many thoughts I have stuffed into my noggin!  Am I really that idiot I tell myself I am when I make a mistake? Do I really have less worth because I failed a test? How useless am I if I can't compete in a game naturally, being unable to lose with grace? Why am I holding on to these falsities after I've seemingly learned they aren't true? Am I saving them for later?

So today, on my "day off", I am going through my office. No work, no plans, no effort other than to just make one of three decisions: Is it trash? Is it something to give to charity? Is it something I WANT to keep long term? Tomorrow I will START doing that same thing with my mind clutter.

Building My Own Strength

{Spoiler alert!! I talk about my belief in God in this one.} 

Someone once told me that God carries them through life. Why would you want that?

Don't get me wrong...I feel God cares enough to help us and I do feel we definitely need his help often.  He knows this! However, I absolutely don't think it is in our best interest that he carries us through life! If our sole means for how we process through our difficulties comes from someone else outside us, where is our personal learning, our personal growth? 

I'm not saying we don't put him first in our lives or that we don't focus on him, I'm saying we need this lifetime to process our experiences and if we repeatedly decide they are too hard to live through, we will never "live" through it, we will stagnate.

Our experiences are unique to us, everyone of us! They are what gives us strength to endure what happens in our lives. God, as I believe, would never take that away from us even as he helps us through them at the times they get too hard for us to simply endure.

In fact, I believe he loves us so much that he lets us live our lives, lets us make choices that either empower or lessen our lives. But we tend to be the ones who make the choices that cause the most damage and bring the most difficulties.

Most of what we experience are consequences from our own choices. That very idea is so empowering because it gives us the ability to change our choices and change our circumstances and God would never take that ability from us by always carrying us at the times when we actually have the capacity to experience something that will change us the most. He gives us the opportunity to decide to change...or not.

 He gives us "just enough" strength, so we can 

What if we create perfection?

 Somebody does something that affects us negatively. We get upset and blame God, the world, our government, our parents, our enemies, that list will go on.

But, what IF that something bad was the perfect thing we needed at the time it happened, to finally get us out of our comfort zone. The results became us making the changes we've actually wanted to make for years? How then, did we see that bad thing? The questions we might have asked were something like...

Why did that bad thing happen? Did we play a part in it? If not, then how are we now involved? When did we become part of that bad thing happening? 

What do we do with the answer to that last question? 

No one is listening to whatever you are thinking except you...but if we're being honest, are you actually listening to your own thoughts stemming from that last question?

Tying this back to the word perfection...I've noticed that we each have ideas on what the word perfect means. The Oxford dictionary definition is: "having all the required or desirable elements, qualities or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be." 

Most often, "as good as it is possible to be" is way different than we originally pictured in our minds. I wonder if that's where the idea was formed that perfection is impossible to achieve. 

What if, instead of seeing how something is not perfect, we started seeing the "perfect" that is?

A Different Idea of Ego Structure

Note; this is my own viewpoint of ego, not the accepted view of what ego means based from Freud's teachings.

“Ego is self and by itself is neutral. Our agency, our ability to make choices, directs our ego one way or the other with every choice we make.”

I see pride as a better interpretation of how others tend to speak of ego. Yet, as fundamentally neutral I see it going either way...positive or negative. 

Negative being: destructive, judgemental, betrayal, selfishly detrimental to others, etc

Positive being: empowering, unconditionally loving, caring, humbly confident, safely vulnerable, serving that uplifts all involved (including self), unreciprocated charity, etc.

There are so many ways to guide our ego but one way builds strong cultures and the other creates wars. Don't get me wrong, we need both sides of ego to some extent. How would we know about the one without the other? 

When we make choices based on our own needs, it is often said to be ego based, as if our needs are always based in selfishness to the detriment of others. When we serve or help it is often said we do it to feel better about ourselves. No wonder we try to avoid our ego, there is no way to find balance according to society. We actually need to choose both positive and negative actions depending on our circumstances.

However, it isn't an even swap. Positive and negative don't work equally like in the Yin/Yang symbol. That is a beautiful way to show how we need to include both in order to balance our lives. However, to truly balance, we humans actually need more positive than negative.

Funny how that works.

Mother's Day post...

 What someone else posted:

5 years old - Mom, I love you.

12 years old - Mom, I can't stand you.

16 years old - My mother is so annoying.

18 years old - I am leaving this house.

25 years old - Mom, you were right.

30 years old - I want to go to my mom's house.

50 years old - I don't want to lose my mother.

70 years old - I would give up everything to have my mom here with me.

My experience:

5 years old - Mom, I love you.

12 years old - Mom, But I really do love you.

16 years old - You're kicking me out? Do you really love me?

18 years old - You're leaving the country? But...I've been told my whole life I can't live without being told what to do.

25 years old - I will have to figure out this loving parent thing for my daughter's sake.

30 years old - Mom, I'm simply trying to "re"connect.

50 years old - Narcissistic Personality Disorder? My life makes so much sense now!

70 years old - I continue to parent myself as part of my healing journey each time things show up from my lost childhood. I can let go.

Progress Not Perfection

    Progress not perfection. I hear this phrase in so many places where people are trying to encourage others. What if instead of avoiding the word perfection, we changed how we thought about it? 

    I already wrote an article on Feb 26, 2025 where I talked about the word perfect. Rather than being a focus on what we are doing wrong, it could be a process with the choices we make being how we traverse our journey. It doesn't have to be us getting to some unachievable perfect goal but could instead be the road we are traveling, with the mistakes, foibles, wins and trips all being the learning part of that path. 

    How much do we need to learn? That is up to us. It really is! Someone else may have learned something that they think will benefit us, help us have less pain or dramatically change us internally. Maybe we have already learned those lessons, just not in the same way. Maybe our path looked or looks now WAY different than theirs but we got to some of the same conclusions anyway. Maybe we didn't. Maybe we never will.

    Perfection is our own process. There is perfection in learning the "perfect" process for ourselves and recognizing that  our own journey may get us farther than anyone else's ideas. 

And THAT perfection, my friends, is the best result we can achieve.

Overcoming (A Story)

 Damalia looked around the corner. "No one is coming." she hushed the words to those behind her. They were all hunched over as if that would keep them from being seen by those...things.

No one said a word as they snuck across the empty alleyway and into a door on the other side. Once inside they felt a bit more comfortable and stood up straight. Still no one spoke but the outward sighs of relief were tangible.

"You're safe here." came a voice from behind a shelf in the far dark corner. A significant gasp escaped from everyone in the group. "Please stay quiet, but you are safe here." The hushed words were coming from the shadows. Demalia spoke her quiet words first. "Who are you? I'm glad to hear we are safe here but, who are you?"

"I'm Fredrick. Fred for short." He sounded a bit tired but not like he might be one of them. Damalia began walking toward him and..."Let's stay separate for now...if you don't mind. One can never be too sure." Damalia stopped in her tracks and said, "Fair enough. What is this place anyway?"

"It's an old papermill. It's been empty since the mid 2000s." Fred sounded a bit sad but added. "I owned it when I was...well, a long time ago. I was hoping to bring back paper books but didn't get the chance before everything went to hell! It started out really well and I had a loyal following for at least three years. Business was growing so fast I wasn't sure I would be able to keep up."

"What happened?" asked one of the others. Raymond, who was only fifteen, had heard of Fredrick's books but couldn't continue learning about them because the plague had swept over the world, taking curiosity and dreams away from everyone. "There was too many in governments against my work. Too many wanting to keep people under their control through their devices. It took them three years because, well, I didn't use devices. They couldn't control me."

"I wanted to learn about them but never got the chance to fully understand before..." Raymond's sad and forlorn voice trailed off as he thought back to the memory of being free to choose what he wanted to read. "You really didn't have freedom to choose what you read." said Fredrick. Raymond was a bit taken aback at the idea that Fredrick seemed to know what he was thinking.

"Whatever you read was dictated to you by others who controlled the tablets you read on. They tracked your eye movements, noticed where you stopped and what you looked up. They even suggested what you read next depending on what you pulled up. What you didn't see was the subliminal messaging behind what you read on your screen."

The room was even more silent than before. Damalia asked, "What do you mean?" "Mom," piped in Tarsy, a fiery thirteen year old and Raymond's sister. "he's saying there weren't only words on those tablets we were reading." She turned her head in the direction of Fredrick and said, "Is that right?" "Yes, I'm surprised you knew." "I didn't, but after listening to Raymond preach for weeks about it, I connected the dots after hearing what you just said." "You have a wise daughter there." Fredrick said to Damalia. He shifted himself but the group still couldn't see him clearly.

"Is that why you are in here, in your shop?" added Raymond. "I am here because I didn't know where else to go. This building has been in my family for decades and has been pretty hidden for all that time. It is my safe place."

Helen, the only five year old in the group said, "Why won't you come out?" 

"I don't want to scare you. I am just a little sick and don't want to infect you." "Are you one of them?" Damalia's comment was trifold. Fredrick could feel her confusion, apprehension and tell her fear was under control. "If I was, wouldn't I have already attacked you?" "Fair enough," responded Raymond, but your teachings, at least the ones I was able to get ahold of, talked about strength of character and intention. I didn't get much but...could you have found a way to overcome the plague?"

Fredrick let out a guttural laugh and then said, "Yes my friend. I was about to show how it is possible to overcome almost anything by simply..." he hesitated. "I don't really think I should get into that here...and now." "Can I come alone to see you?” asked Raymond, “I'm not afraid." Damalia reached her hand for Raymond's arm and then pulled it back. Fredrick could tell Raymond was serious and he contemplated it for a small second before he said, "I don't think that is a good idea. You look like you are needed in your small group there."

Raymond's disappointment was palpable but Fredrick could tell it was being managed by a strength he hadn't seen in a long time. "Alright, but only you and not too close." The room was thick with anticipation as Raymond walked slowly over to the shelves behind where Fredrick had been hiding. As Fredrick came into Raymond's view, he couldn't help but let out a small, almost imperceivable gasp. "You..your.."

 Raymond had stopped about ten feet away. He took a moment to process how he felt and then went a little closer. "You're not fully transformed! How is that possible?"

"It is a long story my friend. One that I'm willing to share but only if you are ALL willing and ready to hear it." Raymond turned around and every one of the four people in the group slowly nodded their slightly frightened faces. "Where would we go? It's not safe out there." suggested Raymond.

"Alright, sit down over there and I will speak from here."