They want me for my kidneys...

Direct your eye right inward, and you'll find a thousand regions in your mind yet undiscovered. Travel them, and be expert in home-cosmography"  -Henry David Thoreau


Tonight I went to a lecture about mindfulness and meditation.  They talked about how depression is about ruminating over the past, and anxiety about obsession over the future. But the present is a more neutral space, a space of peace and power. If we will only get into it, and try to stay there, for awhile. Being focused in the present is hard for me. I struggle with flashbacks of past terrors and failures, and I am obsessed with the possibility of their reoccurence in the future, or of new dramas and traumas in the future. So mindfulness is something that I would have once laughed at. However, for the past few years I have been practicing it on and off, becoming a sort of spiritual hipster, reading the secret, buying rosaries, burning candles and contemplating 2012. So I have stepped up my meditation game. 


At this workshop we did a guided meditation. We focused first on giving support, love and care to someone that we care about. So we would just picture them and say nice things to them (I wish you happiness, safety, fulfillment, prosperity, ect.). This wasn't so bad for me. Once I picked a person, and determined this was a friend worthy of my attention, I found it relatively easy to wish nice thoughts upon my friend. I even thought of several friends I'd like to send positive vibrations to. Then we had to picture them saying nice things to us. This part made me deeply uncomfortable. The idea of receiving care is sort of foreign to me. I am deeply distrustful of people, and generally anticipate that they will do something dangerous, manipulative or otherwise cruel to others in general, me in particular. This manifested itself on my recent trip to Europe as me reassuring my tour guide that "you never know who might try to cut out your kidneys and sell them". He would always laugh at me, and I would laugh at him for being naive. Everyone has the possibility to turn. 


But will they? In my meditative thought, I realized that, even though I had trouble hearing the positive thoughts of my friends, they would willingly give this positive feedback. And, even given the opportunity, they wouldn't hurt me. So now I have to work on mindfulness turned inward... and realize that just as I can cultivate lovingkindness towards others by thinking positive thoughts about them, there are others that are already cultivating positive thoughts toward me, not thoughts to hurt me or betray me... This is going to be a challenge.... Because they might not want me for my kidneys, but they might want me for my heart. 

Traveling...

Today marks 1 week until my "world tour" of London, Paris and Rome. I don't know how I feel. I feel that intense level of excitement that you feel when you know that something big is about to happen, something real, something unstoppable. It is a solemn excitement, it isn't giddy or childlike--- this is real, and its scary, its serious business. But it is going to be big fun. BIG. 


I'm not really sure how I feel. The long plane ride scares me the most. I don't like being confined, thats why I'm traveling! I feel so excited. So privileged. I'm thinking of Bessie Coleman and Charlotta Bass and Zora Neale Hurston and all those black women that dared to be bold and be different and be daring and just be themselves. I feel like I'm #winning. Like its a one up on society, where you are trained to delay all of your pleasures and fun until you "retire" or are "rich". Here I am, relatively broke, but living the fabulous life. In a struggling economy, living a dream. I want to pinch myself! 


I've achieved a lot in my 22 years. not much of it seemed like a challenge. this, though, is a challenge. for me to push myself and also to relax, for me to go away from everything I know, and be closer to myself,and just to LEAP, into the ocean of the world. So scary. So exciting. So daring. So bold. So not me. 


But I have to go. I felt like I'd be betraying the side of me that is adventurous, to only learn about the world through magazines and movies and not go out of fear. Plus, the most fabulous people I know have done it, like my best friend Elizabeth, who is in Malaysia. I need to get on her level. 


I can't wait to share all of this with you, through pictures, words and sounds... wish me luck!