I have always loved romance movies and novels. Being swept away by a love so intense that it makes the whole world fade away. I made a profound realization this evening that I have never made before. I watched a movie on Netflix called After, this isn’t a review, honestly, I watch the sappiest of movies and love them, but this is just for reference. As I sat there at the end of the movie all I wanted to do was cry. I could see my heart in my chest cracked open and my life force spilling out. I looked around and felt longing. I realized at that moment that the reason I love romance novels and movies so much is so that I don’t lose that feeling of passion and love. It helps me keep love alive, or the idea of it, it helps me from hardening. My heart longs for someone, somewhere out there that I have not yet met. Is it strange to say I can feel the distance between us? I can see more clearly over these last few months than I ever have my whole life. I used to let loneliness rule me, and I let it push me into the next relationship. I don’t know if I will ever find the person my heart longs for, and maybe this is a way of pushing love away, but it doesn’t feel like it. It feels like I finally know what I want, and I won’t settle for anything less. I do realize my fears however, I can see clearly how cautious I am with people. I don’t want to be hurt, and even more so, I don’t want to hurt anyone again. The blessing and curse of an empath is that I can feel all my decisions from every angle. I feel myself, my partner, my kids, friends, people around. I can feel the jabs of pain from every angle. As I type I can see why I have become so cautious, so guarded, even with friendships. Our emotions are why we remember the way we do, it is the feelings that keep memories alive within us. Once that feeling is let go, the memories fade. I have been carrying around the pain of every past love I have ever had, it is no wonder I am weary, I am cautious to add more pain to the mix! I didn’t realize until this evening that I was even doing this, not until the sadness hit me, and I was pulled to my keyboard. The more I type, the clearer things become. My love is my life force, it always has been. I take sadness and I give love. But when I can no longer give, when I am too full of sadness, my love runs dry. I leave, I run, I try to get away. And when I have been gone for some time I feel my love returning as the moon pulls on the tides and crashes emotions to the shore. When my love returns, that is when I wonder and look deeply at my life and all I have done. I have always loved being alone to recharge, I love being alone now, but I can now clearly see it is because I feel like the world is safe if I am alone. Such a silly thing to uncover about oneself and the motives of my subconscious. What a deep and sad thing to realize about oneself. But all things must be illuminated eventually, and when they are they can transform, and that is love, that is healing.
Morning, October 8th, 2019
As the sun was setting I could feel my body relaxing, night has always brought peace to me where the energy of the day never can. My dreams have been many the last couple nights, I had decided to sleep with a polished chunk of labradorite that I have had for years. As I drifted off to sleep yesterday I was transported to a short set of stairs and as I walked down I saw a beautiful stone archway covered in plants and flowers. I felt like this space was important. I am going to try and find the time to draw it today, as the vision is starting to fade. It was beautiful and had profound energy that felt like home, for lack of a better word. I need to keep a recorder close so I can start keeping records of my dreams. I like to lazily record them real quick before they fade, and then I transfer them to a dream journal. I can say that my dreams have been very active but aside from that stone archway, I can’t recall much more than that. For the most part, I believe our dreams are to help us navigate through our emotions and things that have, or are, happening to us that we are struggling to deal with during the waking hours. But, other times, I feel as though I have been to another world or place. What if when we sleep we awake in another place or time? I believe that for me this is what happens, and I have read it before so I know I am not the only one. I had thought about this years ago and started researching it, perhaps it is time to continue… Or at the very least document!! Just a few of my morning ramblings before my day take takes movement.
Shall I Finally Write?
As I sit here, sleep drawing nearer and nearer, all I can think of is typing. I have been feeling such an immense pull to write the last few months. So strong that anything else I do feels unsatisfying. So, here I am, fingers on the keyboard, eyes on the screen, heart open. What is on my heart? Honestly, anyone who is reading this. I truly feel that we are drawn to where we need to be, to see exactly what we need to, read what we need to see. In every moment, we just need to open our eyes and hearts and listen. I remember years ago writing up wishes I had for myself, visions of where I wanted to be. I actually found some of them in old journal entries. They always ended with me stating that I wanted to be a writer and that I wanted to live in Maine. So, here I am, fast forward almost 10 years and I am in Maine… Not writing. I ask myself everyday why, but there is never quite a clear answer. A lot of it is that I have too many ideas and they all start to meld when I write, the other is that I don’t feel worthy, or good enough. Recently I had one of those ‘aha’ moments as to why. Sitting and thinking on my life and all the choices I have made, looking at my loop of patterns, and self-sabotaging tendencies I came to an answer. Rejection. My fear of rejection runs so deeply that it masked itself as other things, and it rooted itself into every aspect of my life. Including writing. Sure, I am a busy woman, but it is amazing what one can accomplish in the span of being awake. And I just decided while sitting here that I wanted to write, so I am going to. I wanted to start with a blog because I have not written anything on here in forever and I wanted to clear some cobwebs, so to speak. I have added a tab ‘Shadow Warriors’ which is going to be a mirror to the YouTube channel and Facebook group I created to teach people how to befriend themselves, uncover their deepest shadows and step into them. To take their power back. So many things have been on my mind and heart and I have been pushing them away, being lazy… Fearing rejection. I have made many promises over the years, on here, in journals, on YouTube, etc. that I will post every week at least. I will not be doing this kind of promise again, instead, I will promise to do all I can do in a space of bravery and if I don’t write it will be a free-willed choice, not one based on my fears. The truth is, no literary piece is perfect, no post has all the answers. I cannot hold myself to those standards, it makes it so I can’t write, I can’t create. And that my friends, is just not okay. I plan to write every day, if not on here then on my books or journals. It is time to start making this a habit because I have some things to say and I think you will enjoy reading them ♥ Sleep well, everyone ♥
~Anna Marie
Healing from Depression and Thoughts of Death
This is a vlog I did on my channel late last night and I wanted to share it here. I hope it will bring someone peace ❤
She Forged Power From the Dark
She could feel the world around her pressing in.
Like a vise slowly adding pressure to her chest.
Breathing became difficult.
Thoughts became clouded.
The anxiety was crushing.
A little voice came from her shadows “face me”.
So she stood tall,
a warrior,
a goddess,
a woman on a journey to heal herself.
She stood there and looked into the cool darkness.
Felt it all around her as she stepped into it.
This is shadow work, she thought.
She had been wondering how to do it,
what she was supposed to do.
This was her work,
Her medicine.
For everyone it is different,
for her, it was standing in her power,
as a warrior ready for battle,
but laying down her sword.
A white flag,
and also a fierceness that she would come out victorious.
This is how she befriended her demons,
her shadows.
By standing tall with them,
embracing them,
and calling them into her power.
For she would no longer be held as a victim,
no, not ever again.
Nor would she bloody herself in a fight that would only make the vice stronger.
No, this was about sweet surrender.
A warrior’s surrender,
to herself,
and an awakening of a power so immense that she radiated it through her whole world.
Those who wished her ill stayed away,
and those who needed her protection found solace under her wings.
But she would not let them stay there.
For they could not.
Instead, she helped them also stand into their warrior selves.
And through her strength,
she forged an army of warriors that stood tall with their shadows as their guides and confidantes.
She forged a mighty power from the dark.
And brought balance.
Lessons From the Dirt
Her roots wind and twist,
Through the dark rich soil.
Her branches reach into the wide unknown,
Like roots planted in the sky.
Can I be rooted,
And still, have wings?
I now know how caged birds feel.
Wanting so badly to unfold into the heavens,
To feel the breeze lift and sway their existence to a new place.
I pull when my emotions become too much.
I pull the long delicate strands of hair,
I pull weeds that fill my gardens.
I pull away,
I pull at the ones I love for answers,
That never come.
I try and eliminate weeds in my life,
But they inevitably come back,
with a vengeance that is untameable.
This is the true wild fury of nature.
I can find peace in this life,
For brief moments.
But only if those in it
can find peace and happiness as well.
I don’t understand…
why?…
There is rarely peace here,
Only brief moments of bliss.
That come and go with the passing winds.
This is where I am now,
This is where I live.
Learning the lessons that need to be learned…
The same lessons,
deeper lessons,
the spiral of the lesson.
The darker chapter that needs to be embraced,
Not forgotten or pushed away.
For I am the dark and the light,
I am everything,
And I am nothing…
I have lived with the roots in the sky,
Found shelter in their branches.
Felt the sun on my flesh,
And the winds in my hair.
But now it is a time to live with the roots in the ground.
To absorb the nutrient-rich lessons they teach.
To live with the dirt,
and all those that dwell upon and in it.
It isn’t in my blood to give up,
Giving up is never an option.
But I will no longer fight,
I am tired of fighting.
It is a time of healing and learning.
A time of letting go.
A time of embracing my ever-changing,
true self.
My Life Focus, Art
Good morning, all my lovely readers, I am inspired. Life inspired. I have struggled with ‘who am I?’ and ‘why am I here?’ for my entire life. Over the past couple of months, I have gone through some drastic changes in my life, and my outlook on life. One of the first lessons I was faced with was brought up by a song, by Macklemore, I heard on the radio. I am horrible with names so I can’t recall the title of the song, but of the lines was ‘well at least you’re happy’ and he was talking about an ex that was trying to be friends after she broke it off with him because she wasn’t happy. He was talking about how he was miserable but at least she was happy. At that moment I realized that I have only ever taken into account my own happiness, I wholeheartedly want others to be happy as well but not at the expense of my own happiness.
I affect everyone around me, and my love, hate, anger, peace will ripple. When I make a choice it affects everyone. When I was unhappy it wasn’t because of some outside force, but that is where I was putting it. I put my unhappiness on my marriage, the feelings of being stuck, feeling like my kids hate me, etc. This was all in my head and I was going to run, yet again. Because running is the easy way out for me, running lets me start over. But, I am grateful for the situation we are in, I have no easy way ‘out’ and it has forced me to face myself head-on. What right do I have to destroy someone’s life because I am not ‘happy’, especially someone I love? That is the easy and horribly destructive path out. But I don’t want to be out, I want to be all in. I want to live on the edge with love, with acceptance, with truly being a caring human.
I love my life, I love my family, I love myself. How did I get here you ask? By taking care of myself. By cutting out things that were drastically hurting my body, like caffeine. I have also lowered my sugar drastically, I still consume it and have moments of overconsumption but it is not daily anymore, and I can now go weeks without if I have to. I have also begun managing my stress. I do this by communicating, writing, doing art, getting the task that needs to be done completed (still working on this one). My anxiety is still here with me, it always will be, but by sitting around and just letting it take me has created some health issues for me, along with some bad eating habits and weight gain.
I have also rekindled my spirituality, I draw an oracle card every day to set focus and I do tarot readings when I need them. I am trying to get back into my Yoga and I focus on positive intentions every day. All these have helped me crawl out of the hole I have been hiding in. Because I have in fact been hiding, I have been hiding since I was a little girl and it is time to emerge from my long slumber and set my mighty roar upon the world. No more hiding. I got a message the other day from some readings and it was ‘What would you do if you were not afraid?’ This message stuck with me for weeks! And last week I finally took the leap and went for it. I created a YouTube Channel, a Patreon page and I started converting my social media accounts to serve my artist purposes. I also started listening to friends instead of taking their constructive criticism as an attack. I feel strong, vibrant, rested, and I am ready to attack my world and make the best life I can. This being said, my passion is art or anything that lets me create. So come along the adventure with me as I document my art and the process that I go through to be who I am as an artist. I also talk about what I do and what helps me heal. I hope that my life inspires you and thank you for reading! ❤
My YouTube: Art with Anna, Dragonfly Rose
My Patreon: Anna Burdette is Creating…
My Facebook Page: Dragonfly Rose Art
Daily Focus Oracle Card
Today I drew “Mental Repetition” out of The Whispers of Healing oracle card deck. The card suggests that I’m holding onto limiting beliefs, that it’s time to embrace a healthier philosophy about my life. Holding myself to impossibly high expectations, fearing failure, or an inability to control my emotions are examples of my limiting beliefs. I have latched onto unhealthy beliefs or thought patterns. The Spanish moss on Mother Nature represents protection, cobwebs indicate issues in my life that feel overwhelming. This is an ideal time to create a shift, time to clear out the cobwebs in my mind. Compose a powerful statement that I can repeat whenever necessary.
The statement that is choose today is:
” I find deep inner peace within myself as I am”
Empty Explanations
I wish I could explain how much anger and frustration hurts me,
How it breaks me down into some hollow shell of a being,
How it turns my heart black.
I wish I could explain the way my heart breaks when my children don’t want me around,
Or my very presence seems to annoy them.
I wish I could explain.
I wish you could see and feel through my heart and soul.
Today, I just want to run away from all of it.
There is more anger and frustration here than love at times,
And it is too heavy to carry.
I wish I could explain how the years of trying to make everyone happy,
every single day,
has worn me to the point of unhappiness.
I wish I could explain that I know it is of my own doing.
But the explanations have become exhausting,
I am so very tired,
And I have been reduced to nothing more than this hollow empty shell.
I Am Lake Natron
I am being swallowed,
consumed,
by a blackness that I cannot escape.
I feel it hanging heavily from every limb and organ of my body.
I am like the Lake Natron,
A beautifully deadly water,
I will turn you into a calcified corpse.
Maybe I myself am just that.
Where Medusas stare once held me,
I now float through life,
a lifeless statue.
I know so many methods,
and have so many tools,
To help me escape this.
But I am trapped,
Trapped by the black tar that holds me.
I don’t expect you to understand,
I don’t talk about this because you can never understand.
You cannot walk my shoes,
You would never survive the maze of my mind,
But I don’t blame you,
I don’t hate you,
Even though at times I do.
Even when good things happen,
The joy within me is only temporary,
And It fades like the moon fades from a clouded sky.
I am stuck in a loop,
A hallway that continues forever with no doors.
You will never understand me,
and this is where love dies.
I cannot be what you want me to be…
