Connections of Soul

Written 25 September 2017

Today would be my fathers 54th birthday. Almost 6 years without him now. Isn’t it amazing how the time flies?
6 years feels both like yesterday and 20 years ago..

Then in 3 months it will be a full 2 years without my mother, who would’ve turned 52 in August.. And November will be a full 6 years without my father.

I miss them so much. I’m very grateful to have pushed my life into a direction that is good for my heart and mind.. Moving to California after my father died. He would’ve been so upset if I moved while he was alive.. I understand why. I missed out on a lot of the last days of my mothers life due to this move. Luckily I’d go visit and had spent some good time with her about 6 months before she passed suddenly..
I’m so grateful for the connection I shared with my parents. The love. The honesty. We told each other most everything.. They helped me to see them as the humans they were and not the ‘super hero parent’ idea that children grow up with.. Seeing my parents as the flawed and loving human beings they were really helped me develop into my own. It helped me to love them and become their friend.

Parents set you up with the perfect opportunities to learn. They help you to see characteristics you love and characteristics you don’t love. All aiding in your development..
Pointing fingers at your parents for the things done wrong or not done right only hurts YOU. If you feel like pointing fingers it should be to say ‘Hey, thanks for showing me what NOT to do.’
They’re all lessons.
If you do not see this and adapt this way, you carry more pain than is truly necessary for forward growth..

I’m 30 years old. I’m single. My parents are deceased. I’m moving out of my amazing home in Santa Cruz California and going to India for 3 months.
Unsure where I will land upon returning to the states.. Possibly Colorado?

Life can be so up in the air. It’s both exciting and a bit nerve wracking. I’m not afraid at least. I’m excited. These moments fly by but I’m learning how to truly enjoy each one..
I am so grateful for this lifes path. For the people in it. For the love I carry.
I’m so grateful I have parents to miss. That they filled me so full it hurts that they’re gone. So truly blessed.

Your perspective will save or take your life.
You get to choose the angle from which to view your life.
There is always a better angle.

I’m ready to put this heart and mind to the test. I’m ready to be brought to new stages of exhaustion and understanding. I’m ready for growth. Ready for this next life shift.
Excited.

I am the most sorrowful I have ever been in my life.. and I have never been more contented. I’ve come to a beautiful understanding of life and struggle. An understanding that frees me of so much.
There are no words for this feeling. Any and all cheapen its pulse…
I can only tell you it’s something like the golden sunshine that pours in my window.. It’s calm. It’s powerful.
It’s love.

Today the calm sorrow is very present. A calm sorrow littered with appreciation.
So much gratitude for this path.

Happy 54th Birthday Dad.
Thank you. I love you.

Jeffrey Charron- September 25th 1963 – November 5th 2011
Lea Charron – August 14th 1965 – December 27th 2015

Two incredible life paths that affected so many others.
So blessed to be born of this connection.

Namaste ❤

 

Raise Awareness For Trauma

Every human being carries Psychological Trauma.
Most of this trauma stems from Stress in Childhood. When this trauma is not addressed it can and will develop into depression or Neurosis as an adult human being. (I do not find the contents of these links to be completely accurate. I just wanted to show that these things are very real.)

The amount of trauma endured by children is so immense. So immense and so various that the extent is actually unknown. The varying degrees of childhood trauma and the effects they have on the human mind and output are so diverse, and taboo to speak of, that they often go unaddressed.. and are often found to be ‘acceptable forms of stress for healthy development’. When most times they are not. A subject so unstudied that both of the links at the top have ideas in them that are incorrect. At least childhood trauma is being addressed… All the fingers need to be pointed here.
In so many seemingly small ways, children are traumatized every day… In such a fast paced world children are being left behind… Small humans need immense amounts of attention to develop healthy minds. In our fast paced, entertainment, and judgement based society we leave little room for the necessities of child development. Through this, we have allowed a certain amount of ‘acceptable’ or ‘tolerable’ trauma. Things that people have been doing for decades so it seems socially acceptable. Things like yelling at or ‘punishing’ your child when they’ve done something ‘wrong’ instead of calmly talking with them about the situation and giving them positive redirection… Spanking or hand slapping. Even smoking around them. All pretty commonplace.
I grew up in a cloud of cigarette smoke. I was also spanked with a wooden paddle.. These were things deemed acceptable in my generation and what was deemed acceptable in my parents generation is horrifying… but when I look at this generation, it’s a whole different kind of bad..
I grew up believing it was necessary to physically reprimand a child. It wasn’t until my later twenties that I found out this is completely unnecessary. I do not blame my parents for having not known better. They did the best they knew how to do.
I’ve now been working in childcare for about 4 years and my ideas have changed immensely as I have watched babies develop and read many books on the subject, and on human brain development. I have worked both in homes with one on one care, and in a daycare facility where it is much more fast paced. Caring for, anywhere between, 8-16 babies a day ( between 13 wks – 18 mnths old) with 6-7 other badass women.

The human being is born incapable. I know we know this, but really think about that… What does that mean?

One thing it means is that they NEED our help. They NEED a caretaker. Whether it be their biological mother or a surrogate. This is a necessity… and for how long?
The first years of a human beings life are growth years of paramount importance. These are the years the initial seeds are planted. These are the years of foundation building. The things that happen here are what make the grounds for our adult selves to stand on..
And in this fast paced society children are not getting the proper time and care for healthy development… They say ‘early childhood are critical years in a childs life’ They make it seem as though there is some dividing line between childhood and adulthood. Like once you pass those years they won’t matter anymore.. The real matter is early childhood years are critical in a humans development. The damage that occurs here is what has all of our adults so mentally ill. Stress in early childhood is what is causing out Mental Illness Epidemic.

I know this is a hard thing to stomach. Especially when you have children and you have to be sucked up in that fast paced flow… It’s easy to feel anger and guilt. But I’ll tell you these feelings are unnecessary. Anger and guilt will not take you to where you need to be for your children. For this I am so sorry. I am so sorry that we are all being so left behind by this quick push of intellect with a lack of heart intelligence. If we ran our intellect through heart, no one would be left behind. ❤

                                                      .            .            .
The human childs’ instinct is to explore the world around them. In this rapid society with all its jobs and rushing around, we give these children no time to explore on their own accord. We push and pull them and yell at them when they’re not in our flow.. When what is supposed to happen, is us getting into their flow. Getting on their level and watching them explore all while keeping them safe doing it. Redirecting with positive encouragement…
We are conscious creatures instinctively developing. Try to force any other animal to develop faster and it will probably act out. Bite. Run. Scratch. But we are conscious.. so the acting out happens differently. Things like, purposely doing things we’re not supposed to. Talking back. Trying to take control over something you have no control over.. your own childhood.

Adult humans are not allowed to raise their children healthily. This fact is what leads to every problem we have. A child not given the love and the time to explore at their own pace is traumatized. It may seem so slight when they’re small, but when they grow up there is no stable foundation.. It’s all leaky and filled with so many holes. This is where MOST stress, depression, and/or neurosis come from. The other stuff is acquired as an adult with an unstable foundation..

I saw this statistic once that said: ‘A toddler is told “NO!”, “STOP!”, and “DON’T” every 9 seconds…’
Where we think we are saving the child or saving ourselves from some mess to clean up we’re actually causing a stress hormone to be released in the brain. A hormone called Cortisol. When this hormone is released it puts the body in fight-or-flight mode. With nowhere for this energy to actually go it tends to build up in the human brain. This build up causes… let’s just say, set backs.
There is an extent of necessary cortisol release. As an animal life is indeed stressful, so there is a small amount of necessary stress for a developing child. A small amount,  and not constant. Every time a child is yelled at that stress feeling releases cortisol… If we had all the time in the world, we wouldn’t have to yell and we wouldn’t have to punish.

The point of this article is not for me to make anyone feel like a bad parent. I do not want anyone to read this and leave it feeling guilty or hurt.. Which is probably inevitable… It’s a natural response to realizing something so important and unfortunate. I want you to leave here with some new perspective. Leave maybe with a yearning to help find that calm inside yourself to help aid in this process..

I just want to Raise Awareness For Trauma. The reason we have so many unstable adults running around is because of these varying degrees of trauma we all endure as children. We don’t even fully understand how the human brain functions, of course we’ve yet to fully comprehend the development of the human child.
If this article sparks intrigue into wanting to know how these ideas have found themselves deep in my mind.. I highly HIGHLY suggest you read Joseph Chilton Pearces books Magical Child and The Heart-Mind Matrix. These books have completely changed my views and my life. When this man came upon these ideas in his studies he had children and had to battle with his guilt. Which is something he talks about, but he realized those feelings were useless and now he merely had a job to do. A job through heart. When you work through heart you are always helping humanity.

Everyone comes from their own place of childhood trauma. Judging people for their actions, and pointing fingers at people for what they do as adults, is merely pinning in that trauma. Stapling it in so deep to the point where it is almost irreparable..

I am here to Raise Awareness For Trauma. I’m here to Raise Awareness For Compassion for this trauma. I’m here to raise awareness for the need to address and heal this trauma.

Getting to the route of peoples ‘bad’ or ‘wrongful’ actions brings you to their stresses in early childhood. Addressing this trauma and helping people to see it, talk through it, share their feelings and ideas about it will actually save them from its negative effects. In this society it seems when anyone speaks of childhood trauma they’re being a ‘baby’ or ‘complaining’. Whereas, if you endured the SAME EXACT trauma you would feel the SAME EXACT way because you would be them. Everyones trauma means something to them. Never make anyone feel poorly for being hurt from their childhood. No matter how seemingly small the trauma, IT IS TRAUMA.
Addressing these things in a healthy manner is the way to help heal severe depression, addiction, and constant anxiety… The sad thing is, I’m starting to believe there is a point to which a traumatized human being can develop where there is no turning back… The damage to the brain being almost permanent, or at least so stapled in that the amount of therapy/reprogramming required to undo it would be so immense… So let’s stop people from getting there. Let’s work to help children develop at their own rate.

Slow down!
there’s no need to run down this path to death..
Let’s practice living on this road to dying.
Help the next generations of human beings to feel good about being alive.

I think that’s all the ideas I can get out of me in one article on this subject… A book will happen in the future ❤

Please help me Raise Awareness For Trauma.
Please help me Raise Awareness For Love and Compassion.

We’re all traumatized, people. Let’s get through it together.
All of the love on your path
Namaste

I’ve recently come across a fantastic new study on What Childhood Trauma Does to Brain Development. I am so happy to see this is becoming more talked about ❤

Why ‘Judging People For Their Actions’ is Bullshit.

Just recently read about a man named Derrick Hamilton in The New Yorker. This man was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1983, at the age of 18 years old, and he was sentenced to 32 years to life in prison. He spent half of his life in prison for something he didn’t even do… Now, the details of this article are not what I’m here to talk about. This article merely sparked my need to write about this terrible issue I’ve been seeing. An issue so common place that there are not many people who even really notice it’s a problem… I’ve come here to talk about how our mentality towards crime and morality goes against human nature and development. I’m here to talk about how judging people for their actions gets us nowhere and is actually holding us back as a species.

I have become so overwhelmed by how dysfunctional our judicial system is. Even more disturbed that most of our world thinks that judging people for their actions even makes sense. Whomever came up with this sentiment is truly clueless to human nature. When you label someone because of something they did, they tend to stay within the boundaries of the label. Almost becoming the thing they did. Never to escape an idea someone else has for them. Holding them back mentally, they will not progress or change. Once held back, healthy human development is stunted and things that should develop get set back due to unnecessary stimuli caused by said labeling.

Let me give you an example of how this is a true thing in human development. I learned of a very interesting study done on a group of children. The goal was to find out if teachers labeling their students effected how well they did. (Labeling Effects)
In this study average level children who were labelled as ‘Gifted’ got better scores than those who were labelled ‘Slow Learners’. I realize this study is a little different but the effects in human development are the same. The stimuli and interaction these students received was believed to be what was right for their stage of development.
When you put a label on another human being it tends to dictate how others will view and treat them, and how well they view themselves.
We all know we tend to react to how we are treated by others…

Putting a troubled and ignorant human being into a huge prison system filled with a bunch of troubled and ignorant human beings is not the way to change the heart and mind of a ‘criminal’. Continuing to learn and grow with traumatized peers.. You are not changing anything… You are helping to create the criminal.
But, we’re not actually trying to change anything are we? We just want punishment for the wrong doing… but to what end??

“There is no doubt that labeling can have a tremendous effect on the way a person is perceived and treated by others.”

… and themselves.

So if we’re not supposed to judge and label people for their actions, what are we supposed to do? How do healthily and logically handle people who commit criminal acts?
How about get to the route of the actions? How about get to the cause of the problem and not just punish the outcome.

The heart of punishment is fear. People do not thrive in fear. Fear is mentally debilitating and traumatizing. Fear of punishment does not stop crime…
Let’s look at what starts crime so maybe we can address it in the proper manner…

The reason people do things that could potentially put them in prison is because they are lacking something important in their lives. Simple as that..  Whether it be finances, love, ideas, or just positive encouragement and direction. This is what trauma is. People grow up without having these things. This lacking as a young human develops into stress and depression or neurosis as an adult. Causing us to do things that a healthy adapted human being would not do.

Everyone comes from different circumstances so everyone requires different things to feel comfortable. Meaning, everyone comes from different childhood trauma and depending on the type/s of trauma, we require different stimuli to heal and feel comfortable. We do not get to choose the circumstances we are born into. We do not get to choose the trauma. Nor do we get to decide whether or not we will be able to develop the ability to understand what this trauma has done to or for us as adults. Meaning we can’t just decide to learn how to cope, we are taught how at young ages. Without the ability to cope with childhood trauma we become very uncomfortable adults and young adults.

So, what the belief of ‘Judging people for the actions’ shows me is, it doesn’t seem as though we humans are realizing that trauma causes us to act out… and acting out can put you in prison…
So we’re actually punishing people for being traumatized.. How does that make any sense??
This is like watching someone cut themselves and then pouring salt in the wound and letting them continue…

Our judicial system is punishing people for being injured and uncomfortable..
This is not ‘help’.

Punishing a criminal creates the criminal. If we really want to rehabilitate criminals they need your HELP not your judgement. THIS TRAUMA NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED. The reasons why people are driven to do what they’re doing needs to be talked about. Animals act out under stress. Most times people who have done something ‘wrong’ merely need a way out. Some redirection.

The way humans develop does not change much from childhood. As we grow we require age and stage appropriate stimuli to continue healthy brain function and development. If the toddler does not receive new stimuli and continues to have infantile interaction there will be set backs. If the five year old still has only toddler stimuli to interact with there will be mental aggravation and set backs. Adult humans are very similar. Our stimuli directly effects our output….

And currently, we have court rooms run by criminals who are moralizing the acts of innocent and traumatized humans… Purposely putting an innocent man in jail for a crime he did not commit is a criminal act. The man who put Derrick Hamilton (and other innocent men) behind bars , Louis Scarcella, is comfortably retired and getting a pension. We have greedy, educated, criminals running the show. A show that creates more poverty, fear, and violence than it stops. A show that creates street criminals just so it can continue being.. While we sit at home and watch the next reality TV show to see who else we can judge from the comfort of our own homes.. This all aids in the judgement mentality our society holds. Creating distance between us when what we need is unity.

Well, What do I think a possible solution for all this could be? Thanks for asking! 😉

In the state of things, what I propose seems pretty far out there, but I think our government is the farthest thing out there anyhow.. So, I propose ‘Judges’ actually CARE about the individuals life that they’re indeed judging. I propose we ask people why they have done such a heinous crime so we can get to the bottom of it and stop it from happening again. And if they don’t know why (which most don’t) we help them figure it out with concern and affection.. Maybe they need a job they like, maybe they need to be removed from a toxic home life and be placed around people who can appreciate them, maybe they need just ONE person to show they care. Maybe they need a shit ton of therapy. These are things that are possible. These are things that will help lower our prison population and actually HELP people to get what they need, in turn REHABILITATING a so called criminal.
Also, our prison systems should be more positivity oriented. If you want a criminal to change you should probably CHANGE their stimuli. Prison systems should require you to undergo therapy and counseling. Classes on love and meditation. Art and self expression. Prison systems should function more like a quality daycare… oh, but god forbid we actually care about wounded humans who have done something wrong, in a money hungry society that leaves it’s people behind… leaves its children behind.

Judging a person based upon a violent or questionable act is a crime. It is both shameful and wrong. Humans grow and change depending on their surroundings. Put a criminal in prison system and you are most likely not changing their stimuli. Meaning they will keep a criminal mentality.
In order to change a humans behavior they will require a different environment…

What’s Einstein’s definition of insanity again? … ‘Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.’ …? What we’re doing isn’t working.

If you teach a human through true care and concern you will more than likely end up with an adult filled with care and concern for others. Teach one through harsh discipline, punishment, and conditional love and you will get either an overly sensitive, traumatized, wounded adult who will overcompensate when raising their own young, or you’ll get a chip off the old block. Another tough skinned, traumatized, no nonsense, judgmental, yet insecure and uncomfortable adult…
People develop through their circumstances and with how we’re teaching people to view the world we’re creating terrible circumstances for people and for children. Our adults are wounded. Lacking. Stressed and stretched thin. How do we raise mentally healthy children when we create such stressful atmospheres for adults and parents?

.       .       .

People need to be able to be less fearful of one another. We need to be raised up through love, redirection, and positive encouragement. Not discipline and punishment. Discipline and punishment lead to fear, discomfort, and rebellion, not ‘respect’. When a human is raised through love and respect, they’re more likely to develop into well adjusted, communicative adults. Which means we need to give humans the time and affection needed for proper emotional growth, and providing them with healthy guidance and redirection when they’ve done something unsafe.

We are born so incapable, and like many animals born so incapable we require constant nurture and support. In a society so fast paced, entertainment and punishment focused, we are leaving our children behind. We have created the perfect atmosphere for raising dysfunctional human beings. And IT’S NOT OUR FAULT. We are all so traumatized. We have no need to feel guilty about the way things have been going. All we need to do is what needs to be done to change it.

Nurture the love and light that shines so brightly, and is so deeply rooted in the hearts of our young ones. Help that to be what blossoms. Make it something they know and are raised in, so they don’t long and search in fear for it the rest of their lives.

When humans are well adjusted and in tune with the love we all bear, we share it. We know that it is the most important thing. Nurture your children and love your neighbor. Teach your children to love their neighbor. Listen! No matter how uncomfortable the information may make you!
It’s an obligation as a human to help those around you to the extent you are personally capable. This is how we further our evolution. We are an inter-dependent species, and there is nothing wrong with that. Matter o’ fact it’s quite beautiful.. even more so when we can actually make that function…
Two things that need drastic change in order to save this country… How we deal with ‘Criminals’ and how we raise our children… so they don’t turn into ‘criminals’.

We’re trying to stop people from doing things wrong with FEAR. This is counterproductive and combats human development! Love keeps people from doing things wrong people. LOVE. When people are lacking love they can have a hard time giving, receiving, and/or understanding it. When a small child does something wrong or unsafe because they don’t understand, they are only just learning that it is wrong or unsafe. So we need to make sure to teach them through love and understanding so as not to create unnecessary fear. A child should not be punished for doing something they don’t understand. Neither should an adult. When a person is pushed to limits where they’re doing something ‘wrong’ they truly don’t understand the extent of what they’re doing.  Even though it may seem so. The trauma they have endured has brought them to a place, not of love, but of stress and struggle. A place of fight or flight. Surviving in fear of failure.

Fear is debilitating where as love is so full of possibilities.

Why is this so hard to understand?

If we want things to change we need to realize that we the people make the change. It doesn’t matter who our president is. It’s about a shift in mentality.

Raise awareness for love. Raise awareness for understanding. Raise awareness for compassion.
Come together before we let traumatized adults tear it all apart…

Raise awareness for the mental health epidemic. Raise awareness for trauma, and all it’s shapes and sizes.

Be Love. Be Kindness.
The rest will flow. ❤
Namaste

Here is a link to The New Yorker article about Derrick Hamilton if you’re interested (Derrick Hamilton Jailhouse Lawyer)
We have a lot of work to do, but let’s not WORRY about it and just DO what needs to be done.

Love and Light to Share

With a guided flowing focus you will see all that is right for you…
With the proper perspective you can conquer the world.

Sometimes that world gets heavy when your looking at your feet
Spending all your time thinking about how to make ends meet

Whether it be love or money it seems there’s always a chase..
a catch, or a race..

No matter how hard I try to outrun these ideas
it seems they always slip a finger in my minds pocket..
Pokin’ around with nothing better to do..

This is where the guided focus comes into play. Bringing your awareness back to your gratitude to help bring about the, less stressful, positive emotions that help to guide your flow in the proper direction..
Some days are harder than others, but if I don’t keep in this practice the weight will flatten me..
and I refuse to be flattened by ideas…
I refuse to be flattened by anything

Working steadily to strengthen this vibration emanating from my heart.
A focused focus and a loving flow.

I invite into my life positive growth and change,
as I walk through it with love and light to share. ❤

I’m gonna keep walking.

I’m just here to tell you, this addiction thing is bigger than you.

This is, in part, another reaction to Brianna Lyman’s ‘brilliant’ blog Stop Calling Your Drug Addiction A Disease. Too many people agree with her opinion. I needed to share these ideas. If people don’t know this perspective they really really should… here goes, this needs revision ❤

I’ve spent a good amount of time discussing the heroin epidemic in the north east United States over the past year.. It has especially gotten very bad in Massachusetts. My home state. Around 2,000 opiate related deaths just in 2016 alone. That is about double the death toll of the entire state of New York for 2016.
Opiate use takes around 30,000 American lives a year. I just lost another friend of mine in February 2017..
Being from Massachusetts I’ve seen it hit my town pretty hard.. I’ve seen it take so many lives. I’ve also seen the opinions of so many people affected by this epidemic, and I must say, it has disgusted me more than the epidemic itself. I’m here to give a differing perspective. One of understanding rather than judgement. I’m hoping to help change some of these negative perspectives by the end of this blog.

A recent discussion I had was about an article focusing on drug dealers in this epidemic. New York is now looking to charge drug dealers for the deaths caused by heroin use. YAY! …. maybe?
Where many people find this to be a great idea, as we were all raised to believe in punishment of some kind, It is sadly not where our focus should be going. Going after dealers isn’t going to stop people from using, it merely makes them have to look harder and maybe deal with worse people to get what they need… and in turn puts an ignorant, possibly addicted, human being into a broken prison system that will most likely never completely let them go..
All bad.

So where do we start?

How about the reasons that people use to begin with.. How can we stop them from ever picking up in the first place? Let’s look at the causes of Addiction.
A lot of cases of opiate addiction stem from injury. Becoming addicted after having surgery or an incident and needing pain medication to make it through. At this time, your drug dealer is your local pharmacy. This is such a horrible manner to have become addicted to opiates. When people who are supposed to be helping you end up harming you.. This issue is so far up the ladder it’s not so easy to address.. Fighting to get opiates out of our local drug stores, when most anyone with pain can get a prescription, is really the end goal. But while we’re waiting for this mass spread of research on other miraculous pain relieving plants and medicines, we have another job to do. We have to fight the things we can. So let’s look at the issues that we can DIRECTLY help. You and I even. Besides helping to spread information, we can help in our everyday actions. So, let’s look at the deeper reasons most people reach out for such a fatally comfortable and addictive bandage..

The main reason being, Trauma:
and it’s various shapes and sizes
Neglect, Abuse; both emotional and/or physical. Basically all equaling up to an overall emotional discomfort and instability. When this type of trauma is endured at a young age it manifests itself as mental illness or neurosis as an adult. The scale of neurosis is immense. Much like the scale of the abuse that causes it. But, also like the Autism spectrum, there are so many different ways this trauma can present itself in adulthood. The main ways being anxiety and depression.. Which can often lead to addiction.
Autism is sometimes also one of the illnesses caused by early childhood trauma.

Now some people may say, ‘I’ve also been traumatized and have emotional discomfort but I don’t use drugs!’ Well, congratulations. Why don’t you rub it in? We are all born to different circumstances and taught different ways of coping with our stresses. A lot of people were not so blessed as to be taught how to cope in a healthy manner. You should consider yourself blessed and all the more capable and obligated to help those who need it.
There are many people who turn to anti-anxiety medications instead of hard drugs, but in a lot of cases the reasons for the use are the same.

.   .   .

We are on this planet for interaction. That is what we do. It is how we survive. All through interaction. So at the base of all of our lives it’s safe to say that interaction is the most important skill we humans have. Our ability to interact is our ability to survive healthily. It is our ability to both successfully learn and teach. Every day interactions change our every days.. This country is not helping to equip our people with a means for emotional stability. Which is something we need to manage in order to interact healthily and grow through our stresses. More often than not when someone says they’re sad or anxious they get diagnosed with anxiety and depression and put on medication. MOST anxiety and depression or neurosis are manageable by YOU the bearer of the discomfort. I am not saying that mental illness does not exist. I’ve seen it face to face. I know what it looks like and it has various forms. I AM saying we OVERDIAGNOSE these things on a very regular basis. And I often wonder how many cases of mental illness are brought upon by a false diagnosis along with prescription medications that are unnecessary. Eventually causing an actual debilitating depression.
A Neurosis does not necessarily require medication.
We live in a stress culture. Everyone has some amount of stress to bear. This is not something we discuss openly. We all carry our stress in different manners. Some of us don’t learn to carry it at all and we let it drag us to the ground. Some of these cases are a real true chemical imbalance in ones brain. A lot of times it’s merely because no one ever told you life was going to be so difficult. No one ever told you you had to help yourself because our country hasn’t exactly figured out how to do it. No one ever told you you can let the negative thoughts win.. and the negative thoughts want to win so it’s easy to let them. We have to fight to follow our hearts in order to really be happy. It takes consciously thinking about thinking. It seems anytime someone talks about how overwhelming their stress is they get diagnosed with anxiety and depression. It’s happened to me too. As if you’re not supposed to feel this way in a money hungry society that has no true concern for your well being… ???
Yes. You are going to feel anxious. The lives we’re given are not easy. Emotions are a very real thing that need to be addressed and felt and talked about. If you truly have a chemical imbalance that has caused you to have a manic/bipolar breakdown that ends in hospitalization, I may not necessarily be talking to you, but that does not mean the things I’m talking about here do not also pertain to you. We all have the ability to help others. We all have the ability every day to affect the feelings of someone else.. and we do. Whether we notice or not, our everyday interactions have an affect on everyone we interact with. We truly need to make sure these interactions are filled with love and kindness. We’re a species of animal that works together to better ourselves but it doesn’t seem as though we’re focusing on that. We more often work together to hate the same things and buy the same things. Working together is through heart not head. Working together through love and concern is our only way out of this.

So instead of working to jail drug dealers, who are also often drug addicts themselves, we need to address the mental health crisis we are seeing. Heroin/Opiate addiction may be an epidemic but it is merely a symptom of a much larger problem. We’ve built a society that neglects it’s people because it’s too busy. Too busy concerned with money and punishing people who do things ‘wrong’. Whoever came up with the idea of ‘judging people for their actions’ is clueless to human nature. We are ever changing and forever adapting. When you LABEL someone they tend to stay within those boundaries never to escape it. They say people don’t change but it’s only because we aren’t helping, we’re condemning. If someone does something wrong it is a symptom of another issue. Usually something that hasn’t been addressed. I personally think instead of imprisoning people for wrong doings we should ask if they’re okay. Ask them what brought them to do what they did. Ask them what they need to change their life and make it better for them. We are all programmed. That is what growing is. We program our brains throughout our lives. Sometimes the programming is horrible and negative, filled with neglect and judgement with not a single touch of affection. If we all had a choice and knew, I’m sure we would choose what is better for us. No baby who is raised through love and given the time it needs for growth ever wants to grow up and hurt people. This society is strangling the ability to enjoy life right out of our children. If we want to get to the bottom of this we need to talk about our emotions. No matter how big, small, or seemingly insignificant. Your feelings are worth your attention. You are worth the attention.
YOU ARE WORTH THE ATTENTION.
Mental illness has become an epidemic caused by a stress culture that neglects it’s people. We need to teach people how to carry this stress. It is so unbelievably possible and, I’m praying, probable. The actual balance of the stress is definitely more difficult than the spread of information about its possibility. The more people who realize this the more we will see it. I hope it leads to better and more useful counseling and therapy and MORE of it. Everyone needs someone to talk to. Someone who will not judge them and tell them they’re wrong for feeling. It’s a suppression of emotion that has gotten us here in the first place.
I want to see this addressed. I want to see people getting the help they need. We are born and forced into a stress state. Our parents are so busy trying to survive and fearing failure. This is our first example of living. What other way are we supposed to feel? We’re bonding to a stress culture and keeping it fed.
To change what causes the stress is so much more work than learning to carry it, but it is something I’m putting my focus towards.
We are more than capable of turning this around. Be there for those around you. Be a positive light for them. Help people to know they are important and worth the time. It’s okay to be sad, it’s not okay to not address it with words. Talk to someone about how you’re feeling. If you don’t have someone, talk to me. Please. I know what it is like to not have someone to talk to. I think most of us do.
IT’S OKAY TO FEEL.
Remember if someone is ‘acting out’ or doing something mean or ‘wrong’ it is merely a symptom of discomfort. Think about how you feel just when you’re hungry or tired… Animals lash out when distressed. We need to be more understanding of Trauma. That it is a thing and it should be talked about. Someone talking about their trauma isn’t them looking for sympathy or pity, it’s looking for connection. A sign of hope for understanding in all this mess. Talking about trauma tends to make us uncomfortable. Think about what happens when you DON’T talk about these things though. This is how neurosis develop.

I’d like to talk for a moment about a study called Park Rat (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park) that was done on lab rats in the 70’s. In this study they used morphine in water bottles to study the habits of addiction. One water bottle with plain water, the other water bottle laced with morphine. In this study they concluded that addiction had mainly to do with environment and living conditions. They found rats that were solitarily confined would only drink the drugged water. Rats that were given playmates and toys and things, a ‘Rat Park’, chose plain water over the morphine water. Even more interesting is an experiment where they “forced rats in ordinary lab cages to consume the morphine-laced solution for 57 days without other liquid available to drink. When they moved into Rat Park, they were allowed to choose between the morphine solution and plain water. They drank the plain water. He writes that they did show some signs of dependence. There were “some minor withdrawal signs, twitching, what have you, but there were none of the mythic seizures and sweats you so often hear about.”
Interesting huh?
Are you starting to see now why addiction has never been a choice? Do you see how peoples very different and various circumstances create the lives they lead? They create the mental process that continues forward. We only grow from what we know. If your circumstances have you living comfortably and looking at addicts like they’re complete loser idiots who made horrible choices for themselves, then you’re actually in no place to make a comment about who these people are or why they do the things they do. You have no frame of reference. A lot of these people you say choose this must’ve also chosen the abuse that caused it.

This problem is bigger than all of us. This problem is bigger than you.

We are the only ones that can help each other. If someone has something uncomfortable to talk about don’t tell them not to. Don’t make them feel sorry for trying to share a wound. Listen to them. Be there. Tell them it’s okay. You could personally be the one to stop someone from picking up again. You’re definitely not going to stop them by criticizing and telling them they chose it.
Addicts don’t disgust me. Even though some of their acts may be despicable. What disgust me is how quick people are to point fingers at shit they don’t understand. What disgusts me is this putrid attitude towards peoples hardships with no damn frame of reference.
When you see an addict you should be seeing a traumatized person who has somehow been left behind. And of course it’s not for lack of trying I’m sure. So many addicts have worn out their families trust and patience. This is merely because the help that has been offered is not the solution to this issue. The help is getting to the root of the trauma and creating healthier more enjoyable living conditions… And this is so much larger than any of us, I feel as though I need to stop here because it has been something I’ve been writing about for some time now…
I’m gonna end this here. I have more coming about all of this but this is important and pretty time sensitive with all these stupid blogs going around about addiction not being a disease. It may be a disease, but like many diseases you can overcome.
If you don’t understand addiction, shut up about it. Unless it’s to ask questions.
I’m just here to tell you that whole addiction thing you’re talking about is way bigger than you. The only way this heals is when humans come together.
Now, shut up unless you’re actually trying to help.
Also, I love you. And sorry for calling you an idiot.
Idiot.

Your Perspective Is A Tool

     The first year after my fathers death was unreal. I spent that first 365 days trying to convince myself that my Dad had died. Even though I held his hand when he died. Even though I watched the breath leave him it still seemed so strange.. It still does.
The second year was spent with much sorrow. Realizing this was now my journey. To live the rest of my life, which should be most of my life, without the man who’s grown me most. I feel as though I spent the second year letting myself feel the loss. Letting my thoughts of loss and sorrow devour my every day thoughts. Not really taking me to a very dark place, just allowing myself to make it real. I allowed myself to be sad.
The third year was about growth. Those next 365 days were spent thinking about what I was going to do with this suffering. How was I going to use it? Wallowing in sadness did not seem to be a logical option for me. That would do my fathers passing no justice.. So I officially decided to choose happiness. This was the year I started to really find the positive effects of death. It was the year I chose to feel comfortable with the idea of dying. Truly comfortable with the idea that dying was not the opposite of living, but merely a part of this beautiful journey that we call Life. I was starting to figure something out.

My father died four years ago this month. He was diagnosed with cancer 20 years ago now… This next 365 days will also be about growth. As will every day after.
I celebrated my fathers death in a different way this year. I made myself very conscious of it. November 5th 2015 at 11:25pm EST I had a good moment of silence and thought.
I am now approaching this year with a real idea of how I want to live my life.

I have figured out a technique that helps me to keep happy and I’ve figured out how to love. I have discovered that I have held all of these ideas in my being all along. Does this mean it is easy?
No. Not really. But it is definitely easier than I thought it was. I realized that happiness does not come from external happenings. That true happiness does not depend on good or bad things happening to me. I had to want it bad enough to change my perspective. I chose it and I chose love.
No matter what you do in your life you will encounter things that will make you unhappy, fearful, angry or bitter. It is your choice to feel these things fully. Saying I have found out how to be happy does not mean I do not feel these things. It only means that I have found a technique that helps me to overcome the feelings that cause me discomfort. It gets easier as I grow, but it took that initial decision of happiness to get me here.
The grounds of this technique stem from love.
Love for myself and love for all of those surrounding me. When I feel a rising of emotion that makes me uncomfortable I think about what it is I’m feeling and why. I ask myself “Is there a better way for me to feel?” I discuss internally, or with a friend, whether or not the situation causing this feeling is something I can change or if it is something out of my hands.
Then I make the decision of change or acceptance.
If it is something I can change, I work on turning my current emotion from uncomfortable to comfortable. By deciding to use the emotion productively, honestly, and with love to make a positive change for my future.
If it is something I can not change the only escape I have is acceptance. This sometimes requires us to remove ourselves from a situation or possibly change our perspective of a situation so as to suffer a bit less and heal.
It is quite difficult to speak of using acceptance to heal in such a vague manner since there are always so many variables and the solutions are very situational. Though using the death of my father in such a positive way is a decent example of using perspective as a tool.

Change or acceptance.

It’s hard to say which of these choices is an easier path. They are both difficult ways to adapt, but mental change can be extremely difficult. Especially as we get older and become set in our ideas like they are stone. Children are much better at making adjustments like this. It actually comes quite natural to us as children.

We’re born with the ability to wield perspective.

Making changes or accepting things out of our control, so as to help shift our emotions in a more beneficial direction, is such a proper way to ease some suffering. No one really wants to dwell in negative feelings or situations. Making these decisions when they need to be made is one of the best ways to show love for yourself. Learning to manage our emotions can prove to be very beneficial on our quest for happiness..

But through all of this,
I miss my father.

Those words hold so much weight.
There will always be a part of me that is sad.
I think maybe there will always be a part of all of us that is sad.
We care about things… People, animals.
When we care we inevitably feel pain. Loss.
A good friend of mine once said to me,

    “Life is as much about loss as it is about living. In the end I believe it’s acceptance that finally frees us.”

Everyone feels pain. Everyone suffers in some way or another.
I couldn’t tell you why this has to happen. I believe it’s so we can grow.
but why? for what?
I can’t be sure… and I’m okay with that. I’m okay with not having all the answers. I have some ideas.. and maybe someday I’ll be brave enough to share those thoughts, but I don’t claim too many truths these days.
All I want from this life is love. Kindness. Heart. Compassion.
The best thing is, is that we are born with these things in our being. They only need to be nurtured to be seen. We become what is nurtured in us…

I’m eager to feel every moment.
I’m excited to take these forward steps in my life.

I often doubt my abilities and I often belittle myself.
I wont let this worldly fed part of me take me down.

I will continue to use perspective to ease my mind.
I will continue this journey of happiness that is filled with sorrow and loss.. of all shapes and sizes..  and I will strive to do it with a calm and logical mind.

I will not forget to breathe and take things slowly because they move so fast.

There are days where I can forget these things completely. It happens. Sometimes it takes talking to someone about these ideas to remind me I have them in my heart… Sometimes I allow myself to feel the weight.. but I’ll never forget as long as I keep trying.
No one ever told me life would be easy, but no one ever said it could be this hard.
One step at a time.
Constant reminders.
Deep slow breaths everyday… They truly help.

My fathers death saved my life and gave me new perspective.
We all have this ability.

A new mantra of mine.. I choose to live by this.

I invite into my life positive growth and change as I walk through it with love and light to share ❤

All the love.
Namaste.

“Why Can’t I Just Be Happy?”

In order to find true happiness we must initiate the joy within ourselves.
It must be remembered and nurtured. Just like anything else that should develop and stay in our minds.
Most of us humans find happiness to be an external factor. Finding our happiness only when good things happen to us or around us.
Situations and circumstances creating a sense of joy..
A momentary glimpse. A fleeting sense.
We are raised upon the idea that things make us happy. This is an idea that we are taught. We’ve taken children away from their natural ability to be happy and taught them how to keep themselves busy. Busy with things. Things that we’ve learned to keep us ‘happily occupied’ instead of actually happy.
And this is what is nurtured… From toys to T.V, to school then jobs and their offices, and families? When will this ever give us time to appreciate what we are and what we have as living breathing creatures? Since we’re so busy, we don’t even have the time to realize that just sitting still and breathing is one of the most magnificent things on this planet.

That is something that should be nurtured.
Needs to be nurtured.

Through the magnificence of life’s amazing struggles, and the blessing of having love based parents, I was able to discover that my happiness depended solely on my attitude.
I realized early on that throughout my life things were going to be difficult. Growing up in low income housing you witness a lot of struggle if you look around. As a child I experienced the loss of friends and neighbors. As I got older I lost my father, and now my mother. Family, loved ones… and this will continue to happen..
So, I began to understand a truth.

It wasn’t the situation that was the problem, it was indeed my attitude about the situation that was the problem.

For most people happiness is a noun, but when you want happiness in your whole life it becomes a verb.

TAKE ACTION

As I have chosen to continue growing, by consistently changing my stimuli, my understanding keeps changing. Through this, I have come to an understanding that the gifts that life has to offer me do depend solely on what I have to offer it first.. That it is all give and take, but YOU start. You were blessed with the gift of life in the first place, so now it’s your turn to continue this positive energy cycle.
You start because Life doesn’t know what to give you unless you ask with your energy.. We haven’t been taught to understand this so, naturally,  we have been asking in the wrong manner when we want things..
Instead of asking the universe or God to come up with solutions to our problems, we must give our own solution to our problem. Show the universe, show God what you need by being the change you’d like to see..
When I was younger I was forever asking the universe “Why can’t I just be happy?”
When I should’ve maybe been asking ‘Who can I help make happy?’ ‘Who can I make smile today?’
This is how life responds to you.. by what you give, not always by what you ask for.
I was looking for positive life changes caused by positive human interactions, but I wasn’t helping to create them. My bitter ‘poor me’ attitude kept me from exactly what I wanted.. keeping good interactions just out of my reach because I was too busy dwelling on the fact that I wasn’t having them.. but this is something I always forget and have to remind myself of constantly. Remembering and nurturing..

Don’t dwell on the issue, concentrate on the positive action that can initiate change.

So I know this may sound crazy to some people but, the way you get energy to respond to you is by being reasonably useful to those around you while you work towards your goals. It most definitely helps if you use this method with a positive and realistically optimistic attitude.
The universe, or God, or Mother Nature, or whatever it is that you ask for energy from, can only respond if it sees you helping yourself. This means you can’t walk around with a ‘poor me’ attitude like I always did. You can’t keep your focus on the things that are wrong..
If this is indeed how you are feeling then you have yet to initiate the joy within yourself.

To Initiate the Joy within, you must focus on gratitude.

It is when we realize and appreciate what we were initially given, that we can choose to keep our happiness in our lives.
Happiness is indeed a choice. It is also something that lives within each and everyone of us. We are born with it but we have to nurture it to keep it. It starts as that ‘childlike’ sense of joy when we’re babies. It is slowly drawn away from our awareness and misplaced as we become ‘young adults’ learning to be ‘oh, so busy’. It can even become completely dormant as we get even older… Forgetting we were ever happy in the first place.
And why were we happy as babies? Merely because we were alive and felt love.

The best way to choose happiness and initiate our joy is by simply learning to remember that life is a beautiful gift.
If you are incapable of seeing life as a gift, your perspective is going to make it a bit more difficult for you to be happy. But we are capable of changing our perspectives… It is not easy but it is possible. It has also proven to be extremely healthy for ones mental state…
Most times a true inability to see life as a gift comes from never getting what one needed in that ‘childlike’ stage of joy. When the joy is crushed instead of being slowly misplaced, it’s hard to ever have a sense of appreciation or gratitiude. Some humans are born into the most uncomfortable and painful circumstances.. for this my heart aches.. Our joy almost stolen before we have even the slightest chance of it being nurtured… But, we are always capable of change. When we get older and rise out of these uncomfortable situations we were by force born into. We tend to keep ourselves in them out of habit. Never truly finding or nurturing our joy. Lives like this hurt my heart the most..
Whatever is nurtured grows…
And it is never too late for change. It’s never too late to remember you deserve more. That it’s not your fault. That you are so deserving of love. That you are allowed to cut toxic people out of your life no matter how ‘close’ they are to you. Remember you are loved. If not actively being loved, it is possible. Choose to initiate the change and you will receive what you need.

    To start seeing life as a gift we must acknowledge our attraction to being alive.
We like life as long as we’re happy. It feels good as long as something good is happening to us. Well, doesn’t the idea of being able to be happy, even through struggle, sound interesting? Doesn’t it sound like what we ultimately want? Imagine the possibility of being happy more often than not…
When we are able to understand our attraction to living we can acknowledge the beauty of life. We like it when it’s going good, let’s try to make it go good more often 😉
We can do this by remembering what we’re happy about when we’re feeling unhappy. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t feel unhappy. It’s important to feel our sorrow, but there is an extent to which we should embrace it. If we embrace it too fully it becomes overindulgent and no longer benefits us. Cyclical thought patterns do not help growth. Cyclical negative thought patterns can be incredibly damaging emotionally. Remembering our joys when we’re having these helps immensely.
It is truly important to embrace one’s emotions. And by embrace I mean honestly acknowledge so as to work through them. We have all the right in the world to feel. We do not have all the right to act upon that feeling in a negative manner. Whether it be towards other people or ourselves. Saying how we feel about something honestly and openly brings the emotion to the surface so it can be examined. No matter how stupid you think the feeling is, or how much you think you shouldn’t feel that way. It feels good to voice and address our emotions. When we acknowledge our feelings we can easier move passed them so they do not run us and take away from our path of loving and growth.
We can start acknowledging our uneasy feelings with words like, “I feel weird saying this..” or “I’m afraid to says this, afraid to admit this, afraid I’m wrong, but..”
Your feelings do not own you. They are not glue. They can be adjusted and/or removed, but they must first be addressed.

A large part of the glorious beauty life has to offer is the fact that we can feel these things at all. When you can acknowledge that, it is a big step in the happy direction. No feeling should ever be suppressed. Every unfelt emotion is merely being packed into a spring loaded box that will pop open when you least expect it. Often in such bizarre ways that you won’t even make the connection..

   When acknowledging how glorious it is to be a living breathing creature, We should also acknowledge the fact that every other creature on this planet was given that gift too. You are not the only special creature with this gift. We all were given this holy gift. We are intrinsically connected. All given a life with an ability to walk a path of love and compassion. This should make it easier to care about one another, and caring about other people has such a benefit to our personal growth. We are one beautiful and connected energy… with some learned and nurtured.. repelling..
As humans we are given the ability to choose the lives we lead. So some of us have not yet found this path of love through the circumstances they were handed. It is here where we find it easiest to criticize and not care about others.. because maybe they don’t care about you.. If you notice someone is not on a path of love you shouldn’t criticize them or point your fingers, you should just kindly say your piece of peace and set a good example. There is a really good quote I like for this idea,

“Everyone is at different stages of consciousness. There is a certain stage you reach where your intent is to only speak your truth, not convince others of it. You begin to realize that everyone has their own path. In other words, you cannot convince a baby it should be walking when they are at the stage of crawling. To convince them of that truth, is irrelevant.” 

Give them the love you think they should be giving.. They love they’ve truly deserved their whole lives and may have never gotten.. Set a good example and speak your truth calmly. We all have different steps to take.
❤

One day, when I was 16 years old, I called my father to complain about my problems. My boyfriend, and school, and friends. He listened so patiently adding appropriate responses and questions.. when I finished whining I realized the man I was complaining to had had cancer on and off for 8 years.. This man was fighting for his life and I’m complaining to him about my 16 year old girl problems..
I say, ‘Jeeze Dad, I’m so sorry. I just realized who I’m actually complaining to.”
He responded with, “It’s okay Kate. Sometimes it’s nice to hear someone elses problems for a while.”

This simple conversation helped to teach me something incredibly important.

Actively caring about other people helps us to feel better ourselves.

This doesn’t mean putting yourself out on a limb where you could be manipulated, let down, or screwed over. In it’s simplest form this just means caring about how someones day was. Listening to them talk about it and helping them to feel good about it. The more we do this the easier it gets for us personally. But you also need to be surrounding yourself with people who are not constant ‘nay sayers’ and mischief bringers. This can drain too much of your energy. You need to surround yourself with people who you can be useful to. By merely sharing with them your time and energy.
When we feel useful our joy starts to shine.

I like to look at happiness like it’s a ball of light in everyone’s chest.
We’re born with it. It is always there. Waiting for us to acknowledge it. We all have our own personal ball of light inside of us. Within it contains all of the answers we’ll ever need for our own personal happiness and growth. When nurtured, everyone gets different answers because happiness is different for all of us.
As we grow up though, the world works hard to dim that light and it gets harder and harder to see…

   Once you choose happiness you must be conscious of it. Keeping in the practice of straying away from negative thought patterns so as to keep up with our constant internal conflict.
It is a practice to stay happy.
When it comes to external conflict the best technique to solve an issue is to choose love and compassion. Much of our suffering can be traced back to our own expectations of people and the world around us. Also, our acquired and seemingly endless sense of entitlement. We are not owed anything. We were already gifted with the miracle of life. How could we possibly demand more??

So, we may not really be owed anything but, we do have a birth right to something.

You have the right to love and be loved.

I look at it more as an opportunity.
because this ‘right’ starts with you…
and hopefully your parents, because it’s the people who raise us who are the first to show us how to love.

The more love and compassion we give, the more we receive. This does not mean it makes all the bad things go away, but it does indeed make them less frequent and a bit easier to deal with.

Using our hearts in all areas of our lives can relieve much of our suffering,
but the love must start with ourselves. When we can learn to love ourselves wholeheartedly, we can love the world.
For every person is just another version of you.

If you want perfection from other human beings you must first perfect yourself.

…

Choosing love and compassion means forgiving yourself and everyone else for any wrongdoing.
That’s right, EVERYONE.
Even you.
You want to know how I can forgive everyone? Even murderers and rapists? Pedophiles and Child abusers? You want to know how I can forgive someone with malice in their heart?
I am filled with compassion, love, and understanding for my fellow man. Even if I do not agree with what it is someone is doing with their life I am capable of feeling compassion for them. Compassion for both the life and circumstances that they were handed and the ones that they have chosen for themselves. Everyone deserves a life of love and happiness. If one is not capable of finding that by there own means then I feel compassion and concern for the fact that their journey is lacking it. All I can do is pray for change in their life.
Pray that they stumble upon the path of love.

We do not know the ins and outs of anyone’s life.
Who am I to pass judgement on the entirety of someones life? Especially being based off of only the few pieces I am aware of? No matter how bad an action I could never wish ill on someones life. What good does that really do anyhow?
I’ll always wish for better things for every soul.

“There isn’t anyone you couldn’t love once you’ve heard their story.”

~ Mary Lou Kownacki

I am a firm believer in this.
From birth to death.

We are all born into circumstances out of our control. These circumstances start to bend our lives and minds in a certain direction. Yes, when we get older, we are absolutely capable of unbending and pointing in another direction, but we all grow from what we are shown. We tend to build upon the ideas we’ve learned from those who raise us. Nurturing the seeds planted in our brains. Some of us are not so blessed as to be surrounded by love and light and intelligence. Surrounded by good influence. Some of us grow up without realizing the immense potential that we have for mental growth.
I’ve seen people grow up without one intellectual in close proximity. Being raised on ignorance and building upon broken misguided ideas. Then as they grew they became stubborn and far too certain of a pile of shitty truths that had been handed to them. I’ve seen these people grow up and, in turn, make distructive choices that they firmly stand by. Sure, you can point fingers and say this child of the universe should know better. This child has the internet at it’s fingertips and can pull themselves out of ignorance, but I know we ALL know that many things are far easier said than done.
I suggest, on your journey to happiness, you choose love. Lets collectively learn how to give a shit about our fellow human beings, because that is what being human really means.
Caring, and sharing love and compassion. It’s not that hard and once we start, things start to get easier.
We are all here to make our way towards love. It is what we seek. It is what we are. Learn to embrace it.

Imagine with me right now. I want you to think about the last disagreement or conflict that had you unsettled. Think about how you dealt with it. If you dealt with it with love and thought I am proud of you human.
If not? Better luck next time?

I’d say many of us are unhappy with how situations are dealt with. Many of us would like to put the blame upon the shoulders of someone else. While this could very well be the case, throwing blame at someone does not often solve a problem but rather, create a more solid ground for it to stand on. In naming blame we might as well take half of it because we’re sure not helping solve the issue by placing it.
Imagine now if you calmed the situation with love, concern, and compassion. Whether it be concern and compassion you believe they were lacking for you or concern and compassion that you are lacking for them. I have yet to encounter a situation that can not be either calmed with love or calmed with concern, and/or taking a mere step back.

Love, Concern, Compassion, and Understanding.

• Loving everyone. Especially ourselves.
• Having Concern for everyone.
• Compassion for everyone.
• Understanding for everyone. Be it circumstances or mere poor choices.

Judgement and negative acts caused by cynicism will not save the world.
Love can save the world.

I feel like I’m repeating myself…
but I’ll need to see more change if I’m ever gonna shut up…

Lets keep in the mindful practice together. Consciously acting through love.

Once you start on this more positive energy cycle the blessings are endless. But! this does not mean our struggles are miraculously gone. Life gives us challenge so that we can grow. Struggle grows us both intellectually and emotionally when addressed with calm understanding. When we learn to see our struggles as stepping stones to a higher evolution, they begin to become a little easier to handle.

Breathe in union. So as one, survive.
All the love.
Namaste ❤

 

Any spare compassion?

I am also wandering around on this beautiful rock trying to love the best way I can…
Just trying to love..

              I’ve spent too much of my minds time on thinking about how I’m not doing it right, and how I need to do better… Or how I haven’t done it right… because I’m a fucked up human just like the rest of you…
Or maybe I’m worse.. Sure, I’ve been made to feel that way..
But, I bet you have too..
So, I’ve realized constantly beating myself up about who I’ve been isn’t doing me any good at all.. It does not make progress.
I’ve put so much time into thinking about what I’ve done or haven’t done.. I consistently have to remind myself that we are not our pasts. That the only thing that matters is your output. What you are currently adding to this world.
Constantly reminding myself to be present. Conscious of every forward step and breathing with the movement.
Breathing love.
All I want from this life is simple; to step forward and do everything out of love.

Living comfortably in my heart until my inevitable death. Smiling into my grave.

This does not mean I ask for a simple life. It just means I want to keep a mind about me that deals with all struggles through love. Compassion. Understanding.
By loving others wholeheartedly I am also loving myself.

We are all ultimately connected to one another.

So come with me on this forward journey of loving growth. Don’t look back unless it’s to bask in the beautiful essence of memory. Rejoice in the idea that all of these past steps are what brought us to these current forward moments.

Be better than you ever were and never place yourself above anyone.

I am just another person who looks at the stars and believes in this feeling.
This feeling that our lives are so much bigger than just ourselves. This feeling that our minds can’t even truly comprehend the power that our lives possess.
Something about the paths that we leave in the sand..

I’m not sure of much, but the only thing that makes sense to me is to love.
I’ve been told to be the change I want to see.. Well, I want to see a love overflow.
So this is my outpouring.
My life.
I hope I can leave that kind of footprint..
and maybe some kids will stumble across my path..

This is merely the sense I’m finding in this life. On this journey..
Maybe it’ll mean something to you too. Maybe it’ll mean something to somebody else.
Whatever it means… it’s all love.

All the love.
Always
<3.

“It’s being here now that’s important. There’s no past and there’s no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is ever, is the now. We can gain experience from the past, but we can’t relive it; and we can hope for the future, but we don’t know if there is one.”
– George Harrison

Love Now, while it’s your chance.

https://youtu.be/6CF5iKXnC78

Shadows of ourselves

I’m so tired of the masks that people wear.
The fronts that people put up and the fear that causes it.
These masks have brought a person like me, someone who absolutely adores people and how wildly different they are, to a point of being exhausted by them. You spend so much time getting to know a person only to find out you’re merely familiarizing yourself with a cleverly designed mask of all shapes and sizes. A Rorschach test that shifts with your own interests and desires.
“You like walking?! Me too!!”
“You love terrible pop music with no interesting lyrics?! No way! Me too!!”
“You want to change the world?! Ha! That’s crazy! So do I!”
“MY favorite color is red too!!”
“I also love puppies!”
“You love listening to people lie about the things they like just to make the person they’re talking to like them?! HA! THAT’S CRAZY! ME TOO!!”
Nothing but a shadow of yourself… just to get what you want..
or my favorite, “You don’t want a relationship? Oh yea, me either.”
Shit.
Why would you want to convince someone you’re something that you’re not? Besides two obvious reasons. You want said person to like you right away and two you’re really hoping to get in their pants.. To the first reason I’d like to say, that’s a bad idea. There are so many people in this world.. Don’t waste your time getting someone to like you for things that you are not. Take the chance on the fact that they could like you for exactly who you ARE. When the truth surfaces you’re worse off. Back at square one.. How is it satisfying when someone likes you for who you aren’t?
Take the chance of being yourself. If a person doesn’t like you for you, good riddance. You’ll keep the right people in your life when you expose who you really are…
To the second reason I’d like to say, what the fuck? That shit is so annoying. In most cases I am very good at realizing this is the case very quickly.. but sometimes these masks are so intricate it can be difficult.. Sometimes instead of wearing a fancy mask to show what we are not, we wear darker masks to hide what we actually are… To hide what our true intentions are.

Some people treat it like a sport. I find these people are boring. The “Can I get in this persons pants” game.. When, if these people were honest, they’d probably find more people who are just fine with that. It’s the facade that tends to be a turn off. If you are real with your intentions to begin with you may find more people are interested in the same.

I don’t want to go in deep into this… I don’t want to sit here and complain about this issue and what it has done to my idea of people… What I want to do about this is tell people all the reasons they should be themselves. I don’t want to explain all the reasons I hate these masks…but I would like to say no one who has pulled this on me has been successful in tricking me into taking off my pants.. Thankfully.
I would like to tell you people to embrace who you are. There is nothing more attractive in a human than their honest confidence. Someone who is who they are regardless of what other people might think. Regardless of the fact if someone might like them or not… Even if they’re really hoping you WILL like them. Sure it can be upsetting if you’re attracted to someone and it turns out you have nothing in common.. but, there are billions of other fish in the sea.. and hey, you may just end up with a FRIEND instead of a sexual relationship.. Real friends are hard to come by.

I’m having a lot of trouble writing this… like I had trouble talking about it… Probably because I have a semi defeatist attitude about the whole situation.. No matter how much I want people to be themselves they never will… Hopefully if you read this and you have a brain it will make you feel better about being yourself… but I believe 85% – 95% of the population are like a TV commercial. Show you what they want you to see because they think that’s what YOU want. We’re the product of relentless programming. Relentless successful programming. I am programmed. To unprogram the programming is incredibly difficult.. We’re taught and shown, from day one, the way life is supposed to be. How we’re supposed to feel. Causing us to be insecure and afraid. Setting us up for failure. We’re afraid of being human. Afraid to show people we’re human and we’re vulnerable.. I’m here to tell you WE ALL ARE.
Even the most, seemingly, confident people have weakness and insecurity. They’re just good at keeping their masks up. A lot of times it’s a mask of ego. A false sense of pride..
I’m tired of shiny candy coatings.. The inside is supposed to be delicious chocolate but when you put up a facade you make the interior seem closer to a pile of dog shit… When you let your shit show, the people who are worth it will respect your honesty and love you more for it.
Don’t be afraid of being a flawed fucked up human! We all are!!
I’m wondering why this has become more of an irritation to me as I got older… I think it’s because when we’re kids we don’t worry as much about what people think of us. I grew up with some truly bitchy assholes.. but they were HONEST. They didn’t give a shit if you didn’t like them. There was no sugar coating.. Well, there was a coating but it wasn’t sugar… These people tend to lie to themselves but not to you… but it’s people like this that aren’t afraid to tell you all of the things that are wrong with you that you end up wanting to hide later in life.. When they’re just projecting their insecurities onto you… Programmed by our surroundings. These people are at least easier to steer clear of… The sugar coatings are the scarier ones.
You are who you are. Don’t be fearful of that. The right people will love you for it.
My programming makes me uncomfortable sharing these things so openly. So I fight it. I fight it because it feels better to be painfully honest with myself. I actually have to try to not care what people think of me.. No one could possibly think any worse of me than I think of myself. You are your own worst enemy. Acknowledging that is the most important step in unprogramming. Acknowledging that the negative ways you feel about yourself are irrational. These inadequate feelings are irrational. Be good to yourself by being yourself…
I still have faith in humanity nonetheless. I still have faith that there is enough intellect out there… but I do believe it may be getting less and less… People who hide have children who hide and so on.. You can help this by being yourself. Set a good example by being true to who you are.
If you’re nice, be nice. If you’re funny, be funny. If you’re an asshole, be an asshole. If you’ve got a lot to say, say it. Don’t be afraid. It doesn’t mean it will be easy. It might scare away people you hope wouldn’t go away but if they don’t want to be around you because of who you are then they shouldn’t be around you anyhow…
You are awesome! You are human! You are an alien. We are aliens! Just because we label ourselves human doesn’t make us any less alien. We have these short short lives on this gigantic rock in the middle of nowhere space. Do you really want to live it as someone else?
You are not your neighbor. You are not your friends or your siblings or your parents. You’re different and that’s what’s beautiful.
You are what you love and not what loves you.
Don’t create someone who doesn’t exist. You exist. Be your existence would you? Cause it’s all you’ve got.
I’m gonna go be myself all over the place. I’m going to continue to be me no matter how many strange looks I get. No matter how many people it scares away. No matter what people it scares away. The best ones will stick around. ❤
Don’t be afraid. Risk being exactly who you are.

I also suggest watching Jim Carreys speech from when he graduated from MUM. Maharishi University of Management. It’s truly beautiful and inspirational.
Jim Carrey’s Commencement Address

A Beautiful Struggle

Today I would like to tell you about my favorite persons 16 year battle with cancer.
I’m going to tell you about the most important thing that has happened in my life thus far.
Today I will speak about my fathers death.

My father. My Hero. My best friend.
Jeffrey Donald Charron.
September 25, 1963 – November 5, 2011

I would like to preface this with a little something.
This is the first time since my fathers death that I have actually sat down to write about all of it… I have spoken about it to people many times, and openly, but I want you, the reader, to know how much this took for me to write. This is a heartfelt read. There may be tears shed. I just want you to be aware of that. As much as this is documenting his illness and me dealing with it, this is also a celebration of life and struggle. This is about finding beauty in the face of pain. It’s about how you can turn a seemingly terrible situation into one of strength and growth and even happiness.
Thank you for taking the time to FEEL with me. Here is some more of my heart.

…………

Death is something so misunderstood that it causes an amazing fear of life.
We are so frightened of the unknown.
How could you possibly be so afraid of something you have no control over?

This is something that my father struggled with. He was a Christian and believed he knew where he was going when he died but, he was also a bit of a control freak, or as I now like to say Control Enthusiast :). Facing a terminal cancer and an inevitable death is a perfect way to be forced to let go of that false sense of control.

Thanks to his incredible struggle I can now live with peace in my heart.

Jeffrey Charron was a living breathing Superhero.
He wanted so badly to live.

Dad was diagnosed with cancer when I was 8 years old. He was 33. It is an extremely rare form of cancer called Retroperitoneal Liposarcoma. Which pretty much translates to ‘fatty tumors in the abdominal cavity.’ A constantly recurring cancer with difficult to reach tumors.
At 8 years old things such as cancer can be pretty difficult to understand… ‘Liposar.. whaa??’
But when you see your father in a hospital bed having severe, shivering, pain convulsions from having his insides taken out and put back in, it becomes more real than you could ever imagine. They took us out of the room… What a strange feeling that put over my young mind. My big, bad, goofy Dad in so much pain.. This was the beginning of an extremely long road. A road of struggle and growth. A road of love and friendship.
I can’t really recall all of the exact dates and details of what happened after so I’m going back and forth to my Dads facebook notes because he documented it as well as he could. I am so thankful for this since this makes it so I can accurately write about this beautiful mans battle towards the unknown. I calculate this all by how old I was… From when he was diagnosed when I was 8 to when I was 13 he had had 4 extremely invasive surgeries. The first being done in 1997 by a doctor by the name of Samuel Singer in Boston. The other 3, in 2001 and 2003, done by a man whose name I can not recall. The one in 2001 he had back to back surgeries due to a blockage. They both took 8.5 hours.
Dr. Singer had moved to New York City to work at our nations number one cancer hospital. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC). My father could not make this trek so he stayed with this other surgeon in Boston, who after performing 3 surgeries, told my father he could do no more…
He told him to  ‘Get his things in order’ because he was going to die.
I was 13. My Dad, 38.

I remember the day. My father took us to a crappy Chinese food restaurant across from the, once toxic, grounds of Balfour Park in Attleboro Massachusetts. It was our weekend with Dad. He took my older Brother and Sister, and I out for lunch to tell us the news… To tell us the doctors said he was going to die.
I was in 8th grade.
He was told to ‘get his things in order’ he said, but he ‘wasn’t done fighting.’ He was looking into ulterior methods. Experimental drug programs that couldn’t guarantee anything. Chemotherapy. Radiation treatments… I was in shock.
At this point in my life I was familiar with death. Growing up in a relatively poor and secluded apartment complex you end up seeing death all around. Losing friends in terrible accidents. Neighbors committing suicide. Drug deals gone bad. Older family members reaching the end of the road.. At 13 I understood that death meant you were gone. My father was telling me he was going to be gone.
But he wasn’t giving up. Over the next, I want to say, almost 2 years he put himself through the wringer. Experimental drug programs that gave out placebos, radiation treatments on Staten Island, Chemotherapy, he was even scammed by a so called “Doctor” Robert O. Young. Don’t even get me started on that one. If you search his name you’ll find he was arrested several times. Most recently in 2014 I believe.. That man nearly killed my father. Or rather my father was so desperate he let that man nearly kill him. I was 14 when this happened and was completely unaware. I found out that this even happened in 2011 when talking with my stepmother… I suppose that’s a whole other story on it’s own.
After what seemed like a lifetime, Dad somehow got in contact with Dr. Samuel Singer.

Dr. Samuel Singer.

Just saying that mans name in my head fills me with an amazing love and joy. For, Dr. Samuel Singer saved my fathers life 3 more times.
2005 was my fathers next surgery. I had just graduated from high school.

During my high school years my Dad and I became extremely close. Being the youngest of three and only seeing our father on the weekends I strove for his attention. We are a family of talkers, if you haven’t noticed, and most times I sat in the back listening and staring out the window because my siblings also had a lot to say. I spent a lot of time trying to talk but being talked over. I just happened to be last in the pecking order. I waited.
Over the years my Dad saw less and less of my siblings. Them hitting their teenage years and having other things to do than hang out with their father on the weekends. It happens. My sister, being the oldest, was first to pull away. Leaving my brother and I to go with Dad. My brother is probably the biggest talker of us all so it was still difficult to get a word in. As I said we only saw him on weekends so we had a lot to say… Then my brother started to pull away in his mid teens leaving me in the passenger seat. How I longed for this position. I adore my siblings with all of my heart
but it was my time to get Dads attention 🙂
He even made comments to me about how all those years I sat in the back. His little Bug he called me. Just quiet and listening. So I had years of catching up to do 🙂
I am such a Daddy’s girl for sure. It’s weird how that happens..

So through high school my bond with my father grew immensely. We shared thoughts and music… And laughter. So much laughter that if you put it all together you could save the world with it. My Father then became my best friend. Therefore, in June of 2005, at the age of 17, when my 42 year old Pops had to go in for surgery you better believe I went with him.
This time we made the trek to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center where Dr. Samuel Singer would work his magic.
In order to accurately tell you what happened in all of these years I would have to go over it in detail with my stepmother, which I hope to do soon. Our past ends up this blurry, muddled, movie that is all changed by perception. What I remember from that trip was exhaustion. I think that was one of the surgeries that lasted around 10 hours.. These operations consist of them cutting my fathers abdomin from just below the sternum to just above his genitals. Removing all that is in the cavity onto a table and removing the tumors before putting everything back in. In other words, extremely invasive with a long road of recovery.
My stepmother and I stayed in the hospitals hotel building across the road. With frequent trips back and forth. Sometimes going and spending time with my Dad and relieving one another so we could have some alone time. This was very trying for all involved. Especially my amazing Pops.
This surgery bought him some good time. Bought him some more life. Thank you Dr. Samuel Singer.
So we were mostly free from the cancers grip on our minds once he was fully recovered. Some frequent check ups for a while. CT Scans and blood drawing but we were back on a normal road. As normal as normal is in my family 🙂

Jeffrey Charron was a body builder. After being diagnosed with cancer and having to claim disability, his job was to work on his physical form. His job was to be strong enough to withstand these terribly invasive surgeries. Looking at this man you would’ve never been able to tell he was filled with cancer.

This photo is from 2009. In this photo he has a massive tumor in his abdominal cavity. One in his lower pelvic area, and one that traveled through bone tubular and into his gluteus maximus. AKA Butt muscle.
Can’t even believe it can you… neither could he.
I stole these photos from his Facebook.

Here, without flexing, you can see how bloated he looks from the cancer. With his 12 inch long scar. This cancer is still being studied. They don’t know what causes it and so far the only known treatment is surgery. Chemo does not help. Neither does radiation.

“August 2009. sometimes,, to look at me .. I can’t believe there is a ton of cancer in there. Not bad abs for having most of them removed and told I would not have them anymore.. I think I proved somebody wrong.” (his caption on this photo)
Clearly you can see why I talk about him. Clearly you can see why this man is my hero… and I got to call him Dad.
My fathers death was a very unique situation..
After his last surgery in 2011, of which even his surgeon said to him “I don’t know too many people who would even show up for this surgery”, of which took 15 hours, he was on Hospice care. They told us the surgery would only buy him a couple months. That IF they could get anything out at all, the oxygen would most likely make the cancer spread like a wild fire and end up taking his life in about 2 months.
2010. This photo is from his 47th birthday.
My sister and I in the background.. my brothers shoulder. This will be his last birthday with this type of energy… By the next September he is facing many challenges. The tumors have been choking off his kidney ureters. The things that help to drain your kidneys. They put stents in every so often to hold them open under the pressure. They wanted to schedule his surgery for the spring of 2011 but Dad pushed it off.. knowing he wasn’t mentally ready for it. It ended up being scheduled for June 6, 2011. Another 2 weeks in NYC.
When we got to the hospital his kidneys failed. If we hadn’t been there he would’ve died from kidney failure.. This is why putting the operation off was such a tough call… They immediately put drainage tubes in his back into his kidneys.. We prepare for surgery.

Waiting in the waiting room with my stepmother while he was in surgery is… difficult. Just waiting for any news. A Death Cab for Cutie song plays in my head while I wait.. ‘What Sarah Said’…
15 hours of surgery… 15 hours of waiting.
We don’t know what to expect… the words play over in my head
“IF we can get anything out at all…”
“2 months”
My father is going to die…

I think I was about 19 here.                            Here I am 23.

At some point the nurse comes around and everyone lifts their heads… She finds us and pulls us aside. Now this nurse is doing her job. She has no clue of our history. No idea what we’re expecting or even who we are. Just that she’s supposed to tell us about patient Jeffrey Charron’s condition.
My stepmother and I follow her with anxious anticipation. The first words she utters I am stuck to. Everything that flows out after I can not hear, but I don’t want to interrupt her with a question. I just latch on to that first sentence and wait til her mouth stops moving…
She starts with, “Well, they got the main mass out…” then she turns into Charlie Brown’s teacher.
Her mouth stops and I say, “I’m sorry, you said, ‘They got the main mass out?’??” I’m choking on my own words.
A huge smile crosses her face. Nodding, she calmly says “Yes.”
Strangely enough, this may be one of the happiest moments in my life.
I burst into tears and hug my stepmother, but I am incapable of pulling my shit together at this moment.. unaware of where the bathroom is I find a private corner to release this energy… by the empty elevators.
An elevator door opens while I am crouched in a corner balling my eyes out. 5 people in lab coats walk out, both male and female. They see me and one of the women is extremely concerned for me. I look up with a huge sobbing grin and point at my eyes, “Happy tears.” I say. I’m sure they’ve seen this before. They smile and nod and walk off about their business.

They got the main mass out.

Dr. Samuel Singer the fucking miracle worker.
People had prayed that the cancer would just ‘peel’ away. When we spoke with Dr. Singer at around 4am, when the surgery was finished, that is exactly what he said happened. He had amazed himself. He was exhausted. Looking at my fathers insides for around 15 hours, but he was glowing.
“It peeled away” he said in amazement. Though this was a miraculous surgery it may only buy him a couple months and he now had both a Urostomy and Colostomy bag along with a stomach drainage bag. Meaning he no longer uses a toilet at all. All bodily functions are now draining into bags hanging on his body… How’s that for control?
When he is able, they send him home on hospice.

This recovery is one of the hardest. Being under anesthesia for 15 hours didn’t settle well with Dads brain. He comes out of it hallucinating. As I said in the beginning, my father is a control freak. Tripping may have been enjoyable to him in his teens but now he is not okay with this.
Laying eyes on him in this vulnerable state for the first time in years is very difficult and I turn around and walk out of the recovery room. My stepmother, panicked, runs out after me and asks if I’m okay. I just need a minute… She sits with him for a bit and I come in. She looks exhausted and I tell her she can go eat, I’ll stay with him.
I sit by his bed in the recovery room. He’s having a hard time with his sensory. He thinks a nurse is talking to herself because the other person is out of sight. There is a laptop at the foot of his bed someone is typing on. My father is not only a control enthusiast but a little paranoid. He’s suspicious of the person at the end of his bed. He asks me what they are doing. I say “He’s using a computer at the foot of your bed.”
To which he responds, dazed, “Where’s the foot of the bed?”
My poor Pops.
I try to calm his anxiety by petting his head and humming to him. He tells me he likes this. It’s working to calm him. I love this moment… but he has been hallucinating for so long and they can no longer keep him in recovery. They have to send him up to his room.
He’s nervous. Vulnerable. Like a child.
I tell him everything is okay and they’re just going to bring him to his room. I tell him it would probably be best if he just kept his eyes closed because everything going by will probably overwhelm him.
He smiles at me. God, I love that smile.
Back up in his room he’s still trying to get back to normal. Even resorting to shaking his head occasionally trying to shake this heavy weight of anesthesia and drugs. The next week is so strenuous on all of us. I stay at night with him sometimes so he’s not alone. He would often wake in the middle of the night with bad dreams and sit on the side of his bed. I’d get up right away and sit with him. Rubbing his back to calm him.
I am so drained.
I come to a point some days later that I’m becoming of no use. I have given all I can give and all I want is to go home to Attleboro and spend some time with my boyfriend. I needed a loving refill. I planned on getting that and then coming back to him as soon as I could. Dad doesn’t want me to go and this breaks my heart.
“I’d be willing to pay ya.” He says with a smirk. My heart shatters at this. I wish I could say I could stay but I can’t. I know where my breaking points are and I’ve about reached it. He understands and says he’ll miss me. I ride back to MA with my grandfather and hes girlfriend, who are a much needed distraction.
I get home and fall into my boyfriends arms. Exhausted. Sad. Overwhelmed and so drained. I feel terrible I couldn’t stay. Luckily I speak with my stepmother the next day and she says they’re letting him go home on the weekend. Hospice Care. Hospital bed in the living room. Lots of pain meds. This is nice to hear though. I won’t be going back to NY and Dad gets to go home.
The next couple months are difficult as well. Lots of family visits.
We’re now all just waiting. My birthday comes and goes. (july 2)
“IF we can get anything out, it can buy you a couple of months.”
How long will he last?
He makes it to his birthday. September 25, 2011.
I’m 24 years old. My father just turned 48.
I’m watching him disappear.
The cancer is growing fast like expected but it has a lot more room to grow now. Which means more time.
They say Dad’s heart is as strong as a horse. In the end that was almost worse.
The tumors made it so he could no longer eat very much without feeling too much discomfort. Choking off his organs like Retroperitoneal Liposarcoma inevitably does.
He started to starve to death.
I’ve watched him change before my eyes.

48 years old.                                                    Dad and my niece Meg. His best little bud.

Time seems to be passing slowly. He enjoys cartoon movies with my niece, Despicable Me being one of his favorites. The occasional video game, but these soon become too much for his focus. He’s vision starts to become double. He wears an eye patch to help with his focus.. His brain is beginning to fail. He lacks the proper nutrition to continue.
This is such a unique situation and for it I am so blessed. I have a chance to say goodbye to my father. A chance to tell him how much I appreciate him. A chance to tell him his struggle is not in vain. That it had strengthened my heart. I was able to thank him for struggling.
He went back and forth between acceptance and depression. Understandable. On one of his more depressed days he asked me “Are you ready for this?”
hmph. Am I ready for my father to die. I’m 24 years old. I’ve discovered true happiness. While my best friend was starving to death in a bed in his home I still had to go to work. I still had to wait the same damn tables at the same shitty restaurant with a smile on my face.
This is when I realized that happiness was a choice.
Life can be extremely trying. It is difficult and sad. We have two options. Be happy? Or be sad. What is the most logical? Regardless of how often you smile things can still be difficult, but I’d rather face this things with a smile than wallow in my sadness. I’ll face the bitterness life has to bring me with happiness in my heart because it is the better option.
“In any given moment we have two options: To step forward into growth or to step back into safety”
Abraham Maslow
I choose growth. I taught myself happiness with the help of my fathers difficult struggle.

“Are you ready for this?” he asks
I give a little sigh and say “As ready as I possibly can be.”
Which was true.. but no matter of preparation can ready you for losing a parent. For losing anyone for that matter. I was as ready as I could be.

The morning of November 5th I get a call from my stepmother.
“If you want to see your Dad you should come today.”
This hits me like a ton of bricks.
Okay. I’m sitting with a few friends of mine. They all know what I’m going through. I tell them I have to go see my Dad. One of my girlfriends gives me a ride.

When I get there my fathers family is there. His sister. His father. My sister.
I had called my brother and told him of the situation. My brother is very sensitive. This is something I absolutely love about him. We were all raised to have so much heart. The last time my brother came over my father was still doing pretty okay. He was weak of course but he still had some good time left. It was too hard for my brother to see. It was so hard… and I completely understand. So when I called him, I told him the situation, “If you want to see Dad you need to come see him today, but you don’t have to.”
He says “I’ll come if you want me to” in the saddest voice I’ve ever heard from him. I tell him with all the compassion in my being that it is okay and he doesn’t need to come. “You don’t have to come for me. You only come for you. I’m okay and it’s totally okay if you don’t want to.”
He said he couldn’t and I told him I loved him and I would let him know how it went.

I walk into my fathers dining room and my aunt comes to greet me. We hug. I ask her how he is.. He is catatonic.. unresponsive. She tells me that his eyes are a bit off center and kind of going in different directions. I am very happy she told me this because it would have been quite a surprise… I haven’t spoken with anyone about why his eyes did that but I’m assuming it had something to do with the loss of brain function and he was still trying so hard to live… He wrote notes up until he could no longer physically do it. I still have them.
There was so much energy in that room… I think it made him even more overwhelmed.. There were lots of tears and love.
Eventually everyone left and it was just me and my step mom. As it always had been. The three of us seeing this through to the end.
His breath became so slow. Every once and a while, out of nowhere, he would reach his arms out and moan as if begging to stay. He was easily calmed with a few caresses and and some easy “it’s okay, it’s okay”s
When I was alone with him I spoke to him. I told him It was okay. I told him not to worry. He was so worried about my stepmother. So worried about her life without him. He tried to leave her as prepared as he could. Even in death he tried to control life.
I told him I would look out for her… which sadly hasn’t been as easy as I’d hoped..
I told him he could go. That it was okay. Around 20 minutes before he died his cat came in the room… The hospice nurses said this might happen. We knew the end was coming.
I held his hand in mine while I watched him slowly move from this body into whatever is next for us.
His slow breaths starting in his belly… then moving to his chest.. Then slowly moving to his throat. All we could see was a tiny movement of air in his throat.. Occasionally it would stop and we stare at each other for a moment. Did it happen?
Then another breath… This actually made us laugh at one point. A nervous and sad laughter.
Til finally, at 11:25pm, the breath was gone. His eyes went back to their normal place and some bruising appeared in their corners.
That’s it.
He was free. No more pain. No more suffering, no cancer, no surgeries. Peace.
I’m 24 years old and I’ve just experienced one of the most beautiful experiences there is. I saw my best friend off this earth. I don’t believe you can be any closer to anyone than by being by their side when they leave.
Luckily in the loss of my father there is an amazing sense of relief. A lot of people don’t get that sort of closure.
I am so blessed.
This doesn’t mean at all that this was easy. My fathers body lay empty in the middle of the room.
Some days I’d give anything to be in the hospital again. To feel the drained feeling. At least then he was still here. I miss him. I miss him so much.

I am 27 years old. It is March 25, 2015. My father has been gone for almost 4 years. I miss him every day. I appreciate him every day. If it weren’t for his struggle and suffering I would not be the positive person I am today. Happiness is a choice. We have a chance to be on this earth. We have a chance to breath. Of course that means sometimes we have to feel pain.. but I’ll take it. I’ll take having the opportunity to have a man as beautiful, strong, and amazing as Jeffrey Charron being my father. Hell, even my friend. We are so blessed to have this chance to exist. How can anyone possibly take that for granted?
If you can face life’s obstacles with a positive perspective they don’t seem nearly as bad. Like pushing through waves. When you smash through the first one with positivity the next one doesn’t seem as bad. I promise you this is true. It’s all a matter of perspective. Notice you have this beautiful existence… Now, what were you complaining about?
My father died with so much grace. He was definitely frightened and I am so sad he had to leave us but I thank him every day for having gone through what he did to make me who I am.
I am the daughter of a superhero.
In closing I would like to share a few notes my father had written. He liked to keep everyone posted on how he was. Some of this may be difficult to read..

11-5-2010
(A year before his death)

“The stent was put in my right kidney, I have to have it changed in three months. At this point today, it has been in for two weeks. The clinical drug trial I was supposed to start on the 5th of Nov. was delayed to the 16th but I’m still not sure if that will change also. I know its coming,, just not sure when at the moment. I signed all the paper work for it.

  The stent causes more pain than I had before, but dealing with pain is something I have been doing for numerous years. Its weird to say, I have normal pain.

 I’m pressing on one day at a time. Still hoping for a better tomorrow. Anyone can say,, “hey.. any one of us could die any day,, you never know.”  But not everyone has something reminding them of it on a daily basis. When your well, it does not cross your mind daily… its not an issue that gets your attention by causing discomfort. Before I had cancer, I was not concerned or reminded daily about my possible death in the near future. ( Not that I fear it,, I don’t ,, I just prefer to stay around a while.)  But it does effect how you plan out and live your life. Certainly can’t make long term plans definite right now. I do keep seeking to see myself in a cancer free life in the future. Despair is something I don’t give a place to. Though it can attack,, I refuse to let it have a grip on me. All praise goes to my God.”

January 13, 2010 · Life dealing with Cancer

So I’ve been doing this for near 14 yrs now. I have had 4 resections of this Retroperiteneal Liposarcoma. I have had 5 surgeries over all. 1997, 2001 I had two in a row, both 8.5 hours long. 2003, and 2005.Some of the surgeries were over 10 hours. Cancer in me is currently worse than it has ever been. I have 6 tumors in my abdomen and pelvic area and now one in my left glute. None of which is very noticeable to look at me. I have been on 3 different chemo’s in the past 3.5 yrs. I am on a drug called Brivanib now. Fortunately, it is not one of those horribly toxic ones that make me lose weight and my hair.

My surgeon at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center says that surgery at this point would do more damage than good. So treatment drugs (chemo) is my only solution at present. I am waiting for new drugs to be released for human testing. One of which my surgeons team are developing, could work wonders for me. I hope it gets released before I require surgery to save my life. If I do have surgery again… .it will likely change my life forever. If I survive the recovery.

I know where I’m going when I die. We all have to die sooner or later. I prefer later, but have come to terms with it possibly being sooner. God loves me. He has shown me His mercy and grace over and over through the sufferings I have endured. My wife has stood by me and has been a blessing in helping me to recover each time I was knocked for a loop by surgery or toxic chemo.

 My faith in the Almighty Creator (Jesus Christ) has been the source of my strength to handle this on a daily basis.

I thank God for the prayer chain and closet prayers at my Church, New Hope Christian Church in Swansea, MA. Also for all the friends and family that pray for me.

I keep pressing on.

(A year after the last post he added to it.)
Jan 2011
Now a year since I first posted this. I am amazed I have not had surgery still. The pain has increased with time though. I’m taking full advantage of the time I have to keep myself strong both physically and spiritually. I’m not superman. Some days I just want to give up, asking WHY me?  A lot of reflecting on life goes on when month to month you don’t know what is coming your way with your health. Want to talk about shattered dreams? Everyone has some sort of expectations for life as they grow up. I did not expect my life to be here now. So many things I could want to do, or plan for the future that I can’t plan for. Its difficult, but a lot of people face similar, if not worse, things that change the course of their lives. This cancer impacts everyone that loves me.

Its great to get the compliments I’ve gotten for faith and ability to press on when its hard, but I really just want a somewhat normal life. I thank God for MSKCC. Without that cancer team, I may not be here. Its strange looking at pictures of me and seeing some great physical shape (with limitations of course) and think of the  tumors inside. Its like a  contradiction. Friends at my Gym “General Fitness” in Fall River, occasionally say to me that they can’t believe that I have all the things wrong that I do. Because I look ok on the outside. Its the old, “don’t judge a book by its cover” thing. Just moving around is painful. Internal scarring, adhesions, the pressure these things are causing and the fact that it is growing onto my kidneys, ureters and bladder, it also encases the femoral nerves and my left sciatic nerve. It wraps around my liver and pancreas also. The biggest one is 20×10.4 cm on last CT scan.

I keep praying and hoping for a drug to work before its too late. I fear it may be already too late for surgery. I’m still waiting to hear from my surgeon. I really don’t want to walk around looking like a pregnant man with muscles.( lol. but not really.) I won’t give up, so long as I breath there still is some hope. The rest of my hope is in Eternity. But it seems so far away. Some distant world I have only had a glimpse of through the knowledge of Christ. Yet a very present world. The Lord gives and takes away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord!

Surgery June 6th NYC = Jeff Charron fundraiser

 The very surgery that has been avoided for four years is now upon me. I was told I currently have a 2-6 maybe 2-8 month life expectancy. I feel it is more like 1  month before an intestinal blockage forces surgery or my death.

 I have been having all too much pain and discomfort for a long time and have put off the idea of surgery until I absolutely had to.

 Last Thursday I spoke to my surgeon and he gave me the news. He feels that a major radical resection of the cancer is the only way to preserve my life.  I will likely have a colostomy bag and urine bag too. There is no way to get all the cancer out and if he is successful it may buy me a year or maybe two of life. I hope so. It will take all day and will be very difficult I was told. Being disemboweled is not a good thing if you can possibly imagine. It is very hard on the body. I have had it done 5 times in 14 years and it is a difficult recovery.

This will be by far the hardest surgery and recovery, if I can survive it. Never mind being buried alive in debt that will be far too extensive for us.
I have in my heart a will to survive it. A desire to live but this cancer is very hard to beat.
Hopefully see you when this is all over. I will be in the hospital 18 days to start at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. If things go well I will be home after that.

June 3, 2011 ·latest from the hospital bed.(3 days before surgery)

The staff working on me during the nephrostomy job (Kidney drainage tubes) goofed on my body being like an anatomy chart. I guess they don’t see muscles like mine that often.

Dr. Singer my surgeon had me sign the last paper work today. Said people would be in to mark my body where the colostomy bag and urine bag would best fit in. Scary, not something I want to do, but there is no choice here. Once again, everything I can do to put it all in Gods capable hands.

What can a person do when they are in such a place. I pray almost continuously. I’ll keep praising the God who made me. Cry when I have to. Laugh in between.

No matter what is coming this monday. Donna and Kate are a huge support to me and I am so glad they are here. It is your donations that have helped make it possible. I would be buried in debt if not. Thank you for the help, I do still need more help if my dear friends and family can do anything. Sorry to ask at all. I wish this was not my life. God bless you all.

6/11/11
(5 days after surgery)

With barely the ability to function yet,this is my first entry since surgery. Heavily medicated, and in awful pain bare with me. Please hold your calls, I will call some of u when I can. I lost multiple parts, have illeoconduit  n colonostomy bags now. Permanently. Typing this is very hard. I am making good progress, but still in rough shape. My wife can not take the huge amount of calls. Everyone will know the turnout with time. Thank you for all the prayers I am not out of the woods yet, long road ahead with many a painful day and night. God be praised I made it even to a borrowed keyboard. Your kind contributions, are a help that still needs help if u find yourself in the position to help even a little. Without the help of my wife and family I would be suffering far far greater. This has taxed me beyond measure just to type this. Cannot handle any more. Thank you my friends and family.

……..

And finally, his Farewell note… This is the hardest one for me. ❤ But my father had the opportunity to say Farewell to this world.

Saying farewell
October 7, 2011

Its hard to say goodbye so I say farewell. I am down to skin and bone and the tumors are stretching my abdomen to even bending my spine. I can’t stand up straight and it hurts a bunch to try. My pain meds help me. I have done the best I could to be strong to the end. The time is coming, I can feel it and I can see it in the mirror as I get weaker and skinnier.

 I am headed for the Great experience of Meeting God. Letting go of this life and clinging to the next that I have not seen yet, but through Jesus Christ I get a glimpse.

 To everyone who has been a blessing to me, both family and friends. I love you all! I would love to stay and be with you all and somehow by some miracle survive this, but reality is in my face. I do walk by faith and not by sight but that does not mean I don’t think rationally. God can do anything. Why these tumors have not shrunk I do not know. God has kept me alive for this amount of time for His reasons. I could have been gone long ago. I am here till He takes me home. I will trust in Him.

 Contributions still welcome on behalf of my wife losing work and not having any income, to be with me. I need a constant babysitter now. We have been blessed to have what we have been provided                                          through the loving hands of all of you who have given.
                                                                 Jeff Charron

❤

You can feel the weight of this I’m sure… But, I can tell you why the tumors didn’t shrink… I shared his farewell note on facebook… these were some comments… A friend of mine who had recently lost her father to cancer responded.

       Sarah- thank you for sharing this

Kateland- I love you Sarah. You’re very welcome. Thank you for appreciating it. I don’t just thank you for me, I thank you for you. I imagine this would bring on some good feelings for you. Stir us up to learn about ourselves

Sarah- I could feel this as I read it, I don’t know how to explain that differently but I’m sure you understand. You father seems such a beautiful soul, and I am grateful to him for helping you help me. Seeing you use this loss in such a powerful way has really transformed my thinking and helped me heal and grow.

Kateland- God, Sarah. You don’t know how happy that makes me. THAT is why his tumors didn’t shrink. Because of this. Because he was built to show us his strength. I was built to carry it and share it. Thank you for being part of his legacy. Eternal love for you Sarah.

                                                            …….

Love is watching someone die. ❤

We are so bless to breath and live the lives we live. Even my father who had to struggle so much in his life. He was so blessed to experience his experience.

Don’t ever forget how blessed you are to be alive.
To experience our experiences no matter how short or difficult.
We have the beautiful opportunity to be conscious.
Embrace it and don’t waste it on wallowing in sadness.

“Recognize this as a holy gift and celebrate this chance to be alive and breathing.”

Thank you for taking the time to read this to the end. There were many tears shed in writing this but also many smiles. I carry his strength in my heart and for that I can truly smile. Be aware of what you have. If you’re unhappy about things you can control, change your situation. Otherwise, change your attitude about the situation. Life is too short to be so negative.

I miss you Dad. Thank you.

All the love
Peace ❤