“If you are always trying to be normal,
you will never know
how amazing you can be.”
~ Maya Angelou
 Mara Ket via unsplash If you want to be a poet be prepared for an adventure it might begin with a faint nudge from a well inside a tap, tap, tap like rain or snow or the cocoon of fog gracing a window. It’s a knowing you can’t hide. It might begin with an avalanche of pain and tears and all the aches from far and near and, yet you’ve kept it quiet… until now. Several will say it’s your calling but I say it’s a stirring spell more like drinking a potion where love and hope, angst and pain and somehow the sea and gravity are mixed in with the stars and the moon. Nature will be your guide, and emotions will serve as a teacher. Your experiences and way of being will transcribe the poetry for you. Others seeking their words will be attracted when you share yours. It’s a conduit that bridges people. When a poem is ready to come through you will notice a perplexing sensation near your heart or a burning in your belly and there’s very little that can stop you from the urge to write. You will pull your car over and you’ll scramble to find an envelope, the edge of a grocery list whether the sun stands tall or if evergreens call and most definitely when your tears fall. Even in your nighttime dreams, you’ll scribble notes and words and chapters. A leaf will come to life. Colors are purer. Those voices touch your DNA and by morning, you’ll rub your eyes and exclaim, I must write! If you want to be a poet please understand it is complex and it is simple. To be a poet is inviting, a convoluted inquiry exposing all sides of you because…. Poetry is your companion. A signature from you. A scribe of words and a dialect that only can be transcribed by you. Published on Medium. "If You Want to Be a Poet."
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 Photo by Ben Scott on Unsplash I prefer soft landings and slow starts. Space to deliberately study a leaf’s lineage. To feel words as they roll over my tongue. Is there a river-like cadence? Or do I need a valley of vowels with voles? Am I caught in the grey shale shades, unable to find the blue ones? Or have I wed my dreams with a tangerine sun? The sky, whether night or day, is split wide with starry diamond eyes. A depth mirrored as the sea. I’m captivated by the bees who nurse the pollen from lavender’s bent knees. They dip freely in a flowing fresco, a living hum. And each day, a bouquet of roses blooming on thorn and green welcome my soul home. I prefer soft landings and slow starts, so I don’t forget where I come from. Featured on Medium: "This is Who I Am"
 Photo by Jessica Felicio on Unsplash Sometimes our days get so hectic, and we forget to slow down enough to take care of ourselves. We erase our personal boundaries and believe if we just give more, all will be okay. But this mindset can lead to burnout. Anne Helen Petersen, author of Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation, writes: “…the burnout condition is more than just addiction to work. It’s an alienation from the self and from desire. If you subtract your ability to work, who are you? Is there a self left to excavate? We aren’t infinite creatures of energy. We need to have limits so we can refill. Which led me to think about personal boundaries. Then I asked myself these four questions:
I turned this into a journal writing exercise to see where my inner wisdom would lead me.  Photo by Aiony Haust on Unsplash One afternoon, on a late walk, these words came to me: “The more we try to walk into the light, the bigger our shadow grows.”
Then I thought, we can’t be real if we only share what’s going well. What if we shared a little more of what’s going wrong to normalize how we aren’t perfect but beautifully real? It is hard to be ourselves. We are told not to feel too much and to toughen up. “Don’t take it personally” is another adage flavored with condescension and minimizing one’s sensitivity. What if you do take it personally and feel hurt? I know, at times, I do, and it really aches to be dismissed. Are we supposed to tuck more proverbial nonsense under an already bulging rug? I think not, and yet, sometimes, we’ve become too conditioned and pretend we are okay. But what if we aren’t okay. What if we are tired, annoyed, and irritable? What if we don’t always want to be nice and polite? What if we have an opinion different from the majority? What if we think and feel in layers, so we simply need more time alone? I feel our sensitivity and differences are a gift. And that means we are intelligent creatures who choose to set personal boundaries. By doing so, we respect and appreciate our needs.  Photo by S. Hermann & F. Richter via pixaby “Let go the people who are not prepared to love you. This is the hardest thing you will have to do in your life, and it will also be the most important thing. — Anthony Hopkins We know, not everyone will love us, and sometimes, those who say they do really don’t! What a mixed signal! With the latter, we sense an undercurrent of contrary feelings. We notice something is off but can’t quite put our finger on it. Yet we feel the mixed signal, deep, deep, deep down in our gut.
One of the most challenging life lessons is to stop trying to gain any sort of close relationship with a person who doesn’t accept us as we are. Of course, we aren’t perfect, and that is the crux of being human. Our imperfect quirks are our beauty and intelligence. Here’s a way to help us let go of people who are not prepared to love us is to watch out for mixed signals. |
AboutCarolyn Riker is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) in private practice. She is also the author of three books. Her most recent book is "My Dear, Love Hasn't Forgotten You." Archives
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