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boston 2021 travel journal

November 16, 2021

france + belgium 2020

January 30, 2020

eurotrip 2017

eurotrip 2016

southeast asia 2015

eurotrip 2014

eurotrip 2012

Words have power.

This is not a new concept. I’ve always known this, but sometimes I surprise myself at how much power I actually wield with my words.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, I like words. I find that I do some of my best self-expression with words. I write stories, compose songs, and entice people with tidbits of my life all creatively strung together by a series of words.

Words have power.

Lately, I’ve let my emotions take complete control over my life. There’s literally a battle waging inside of me between my emotional self and my rational self. In moments of intense emotions, I say things that I don’t mean. I try to reason with myself by actually telling myself that I’m being batshit crazy, but for some reason, it never sinks in until I write and read back all of the words that come pouring out of me.

I can see my crazy on the page. I can see all of my hopes and dreams and so much fear. There’s a scared little girl in there gripping tightly to things she can’t let go of and it all just makes me so sad. How do you deal with those kinds of words? What do you do with all of that information that wasn’t ever clear to you until you wrote them all down? How do you go about saying I’m sorry?

I find journaling to be very therapeutic for me. It allows me to speak into the void and let everything out. I can speak to myself, I can speak to God, and I can speak to people I love. I write letters to those people I desperately want to talk to which I never send. Sometimes I simply can’t send them. But that’s okay because I can apologize. These letters help me see things about myself or the situation that I hadn’t seen before. And each time I write, I learn something new.

I don’t think I’ll ever have it all figured out. Words have the power to heal and mend things in situations gone wrong, but they can’t fix everything. There are just some wounds in life that you simply can’t fix. You can’t get over; you can’t heal from. Grief is one of those things I think that you just have to adapt to. It never really goes away but you learn to walk alongside it. It’s love with no place to land. xx

Maybe one day I can take photos like these in a real forest and make my winter wonderland dreams come true. I'll brave the cold for it just this once! xx

Book 2/25: The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman
Rating: ✩✩✩✩

I've been wanting to read this book for a while now and added it to my 2022 "unfurling" reading list. It's a very thin book, so I picked it up the other day and literally devoured it. It's such a quick read! I knew a lot of the information already as I had looked into the 5 love languages before reading it, but I did enjoy the examples of couples that were given.

Now I really want to put this into practice with my own relationships. I'm already examining a lot of the relationships (both platonic and romantic) I have with other people. The information has helped me discover why I feel closer and more connected to certain people than others. It's also helped me to understand my own feelings and why I've reacted to things the way that I did in my romantic relationships.

I think being aware of how you give and receive love is so important. I feel like instead of asking "what's your sign?" we should all start asking "what are your love languages?" because it will prevent SO MUCH confusion and miscommunication with each other. While I think a lot of relationships are about compatibility, I also think we choose who we love. A lot of a relationship is a matter of choice and just knowing how the other person gives and receives love would make choosing to love someone that much easier. xx

Posted March 2nd, 2022:

My OLW vision board in my unraveling journal.

I took note from @aliedwards's video this month and did a vision board that spans a few pages. It covers the main areas of my life I want to work on this year.

I focused on my dreams for my own home—I want a cute little cottage with a luscious garden I can tend to—some hobbies I want to pursue, my dreams for myself, and my vision for love and connection.

Before I sat down to create my board, I wrote up a mind map following @lucrecer's video. It was SUPER HELPFUL for getting down what I really wanted to focus on. I sort of copied @azzarijarrett and used a photo of myself for the center of my mind map, then came up with a handful of areas I really want to focus on. I really liked what I came up with that I created a special bi-fold insert in my journal and copied my map out again because I wanted to house it in my journal instead of leaving it on the scrap piece of paper I used to jot it all down. I added a magazine quote clipping and my word to it, which filled up the space but also reinforced my vision.

I really enjoyed creating these pages! xx

Posted Feb 20th, 2022:

“Bel far niente means ‘the beauty of doing nothing.’

The beauty of doing nothing is the goal of all your work, the final accomplishment for which you are most highly congratulated. The more exquisitely and delightfully you can do nothing, the higher your life’s achievement.” ― Elizabeth Gilbert

I really like this idea of “the beauty of doing nothing,” or “Il Dolce Far Niente,” the sweetness of doing nothing. I don’t take this idea literally because I believe there should be a balance in life, but I do relate it to the whole “work to live, not live to work” idea.

I spent the evening yesterday working on my mind map for my OLW, as shared by Lu in Ali Edwards’ class. I’ve never made a mind map for my word before—or for my year—but decided to do it this time to help put together my vision board. It was a great way to organize my thoughts for my vision.

On my mind map, I wrote out WORK LESS, MAKE MORE under my “Work” section, which I’m holding tightly too like my own personal work mantra. What I mean by it is that I want to spend less time working but still make enough money to comfortably afford my life. Essentially, work fewer hours but still make more money. Work smarter, not harder. That is my new goal in life because we as a society have an awful habit of working our lives away until death and I will not be a part of it.

And that’s why I like this idea of il dolce far niente. The idea that it is sweet to lay about and do nothing. That your life’s goal, in the end, isn’t to slave away at a job for a salary, but to enjoy your work which affords you the TIME and luxury to relax and do nothing.

Everything simply boils down to time. Time spent working and time spent enjoying your life. And I’d rather spend all of my time enjoying my life than working.

There’s that meme going around of gnome-like creatures sitting at a table in a garden doing pretty much nothing, and how we should be glamorizing that instead.

Yes, we should all be striving for that instead. Let’s stop teaching kids about the grind and show them instead how to relax and enjoy their lives. xx

Posted Jan 18th, 2022:

I’ve been thinking a lot about happiness lately, especially in relation to my one little word for this year. After reading over what I had written in my journal, I noticed a thread of wanting to invite more joy into my life. It has me thinking if I should possibly change one of my supporting words to joy…

As of right now, my supporting words are CHANGE, INSPIRE, and BALANCE.

I feel really connected with both Change and Balance, as those are two things I’m hoping will manifest for me this year. Particularly positive change that propels me forward and balance in all aspects of my life.

The word Inspire is heavily rooted in my creativity, which if I’m being entirely honest has been lacking these past couple of months. I’ve been a bit sad and depressed lately, and I just don’t have any motivation to create like I normally would. So currently, I’m not much attached to that word like I was when I initially set my intentions.

That all being said, I do think JOY needs its space amongst CHANGE and BALANCE. I believe my process of becoming wouldn’t be complete without the search for the joy within myself. The insights on joy that @elizabeth_gilbert_writer shares in her book Eat, Pray, Love deeply resonated with me. It echoes the wisdom shared on last week’s episode of the @beingwellpodcast. “The key to joy is learning to love yourself”—finding “the divine goodness” that we all have within ourselves. That’s where joy lives.

So I feel deep in my heart that the hierarchy of my words should be as such:

BECOMING
CHANGE
BALANCE
JOY

and then maybe INSPIRE.

My heart is saying YES. xx

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