I may be just writing this to myself, but I will share this with you all anyway. Over the recent weeks I took a step back from everything to look for clarity. I do this from time to time. I limit my social interaction, reading, writing, work, and anything else that I deem a distraction. For me, everything had become muddled with opposing views and internal conflicts. The journey of self is like a constant revealing and just when you think you have something figured out, a new bit of information is added to the mix forcing you to reconfigure your previous calculations. Maybe I should stop trying to reach conclusions. Maybe there aren't any problems to be solved and the very act of trying to solve the problem is what causes the problem that never really existed... I just read that I titled the post "Anger" so I should get to it. The funny thing is what I have done so far is the perfect illustration of how I have been addressing my anger. I work so hard on an explanation that I forget I was angry. Kind readers, use your imagination and see this next paragraph as the first.

I am angry about a lot of things. If I had to describe what my anger looks like, it would resemble a black ferocious canine-like creature that when it gets really angry bulks up like a charcoal gray hulk. This androgynous hulk dog/wolf has the strength of 8000 pitbulls and the hunger 5000 packs of wolves combined. I keep it chained up, but it broke free recently and it started to hunt me. My cat-like abilities and uncanny talent to search out steel doors and high ledges have allowed me to allude it, but I have a feeling that it knows exactly where I am. It's hunting me, finding the right time to take its reward. You see, every time I seek to dive deeper into myself, there it is growling and baring its teeth. I hiss back with explanations and someone distracts me with heart shaped candy corns. It watches me sap up the unbearable sweetness as a new muscle tones in its jaw.  I search for cake and it searches for me. Dun Dun Dun Duuuuun.. I have had too much cake this time. That ultimate muscle has been toned. I saw it when it happened. I heard it when it said enough was enough. I ran when I saw the chains break and the cage completely shattered. I tried to negotiate with dog-catchers. No one would help me because this is my journey.

Here is a confession: I have always had a strong disdain for the phrase "love and light". Oooh it irks me to the bone. Oh man, I don't think I could describe enough how much I can't stand those words together. Recently in an email exchange, someone said "love and darkness" and I felt my heart smile and inside I sighed, "Yes!". "Love and light" always sounded incredibly pretentious and a like a huge gargantuan LIE. Most of the people saying it from my observations seem to be saying it as a hope and not a reality. I say deal with the reality. You know good and well you aren't all about love and light so be real and say so. I know I am not. I am all of it. If I am the oppressed, I am the oppressor. If I am the beautiful, I am the ugly. If I am the shit, I am the flowers. If I am the light, I am the darkness as well...And if I am the articulate, then I am the foul-mouthed, so fuck "love and light". <-----Maybe that is the dog in me. If I am the hunted, I am the hunter.

Anyone that knows me now, knows that I love children. Love. Them. But if you knew me in my younger years, you would have thought I was allergic to them. Even as a child, I wouldn't have younger friends. I was too cool for them. I can honestly say, I spent most of my childhood running away from being a child. At nine, if someone said, "Let's play!" I would look at them as if they have committed a great offense to my very nature. Snobbishly, I would reply, "I don't play." Things started to change when all of my friends started to have children. I found that I really related to their children, in fact, more than I did to them. I liked what they had to say. I could see how smart and wise they were about life. They made sense. Now as an adult, I am happy to play. I love having fun and as one of my friends recently observed, I don't need a reason to have fun, I just do it. I love where I am at in my life, but I have to admit it was a journey to get here.

A lot of my sense of wonder and joy can definitely be attributed to Reiki being in my life. When I first became attuned to the energy, I laughed about everything for almost a month. I laughed about things that society says I shouldn't laugh about, but it felt so good, I couldn't stop. Talk about healing and releasing. But even before that, I had glimpses of this kind of joy over the years. Like when I would give full concerts to anyone who would listen or who got trapped in a car with me. One time on a road trip, I sang for almost 2 hours straight, no commercials, full songs, because we didn't have a radio. I sang every song I had memorized down to every adlib, ooh and ahh to my cousins who definitely didn't know what they were in for. I love to sing by the way. When I look back, I realize I have always been a big and admittedly eccentric kid, but it has taken me a long time to embrace that in me. I think I saw it as a weakness. Everyone around me always seemed to be growing up and I was getting younger. I thought there was something wrong with me.

Things changed when I finally took the plunge and decided to teach elementary students. Miss Kiki was born. I started out so serious because I wanted to be "grown up", mature, and a "good" teacher. It didn't work; I was absolutely miserable and the scary part was that my condition was socially accepted as "normal". Since I knew I didn't get into teaching to be miserable, I followed my mother's advice who is a teacher and fellow big kid. She told me to have fun. Then I listened to my heart and my heart told me to love the children. From there I had the greatest time. I would make up songs, do one-woman role play skits, dance, joke, make up games, all in the name of "teaching". We would end each lesson with I love yous and humungous smiles. I wouldn't even consider myself a teacher because I truly played all day and it worked. I knew I did something right when a student demanded for the lesson to start. He was like, "Let's get this party started!" and I was like, "You ain't said nothin' but a word."

Tapping into my youthfulness, inner joy, or Inner Child keeps me creative, excited about life, and happy. It is wild that I spent so many years trying to suppress it in order to fit and survive in a world that says miserable is normal. Well I can't say I was ever that successful, but I did try. I was actually ashamed and embarrassed about the greatness that I am. Now, with Reiki in my life, I couldn't go back if I tried. It helped me heal. It was like, " What you waitin' for? Girl go 'head and do you!" and I was like, "Really? Should I?" and then it was like, " Uh... yeah!" and then I was like, "Alright! Here I go. Watch me crank it. Watch me roll." and then there was a dance. When I work with a client, they often feel relaxed and have a great sense of well being after a session. I on the other hand, feel giddy and then I get excited and then I giggle and do a little dance (I like to dance). The love and excitement I feel about life and myself is why some women have children. They want that feeling . I am writing this today to say that if you want to feel unconditional love, joy, excitement, and creativity then find it within yourself. Let that Inner Child who loves to have fun come out. Do what you love. I used to tell my students that Miss Kiki came to have fun and that they weren't going to get in the way of that. My happiness, the love that I felt, the fun that I had, was never dependent on them and they knew it.

Observe children if you don't understand what I have shared. They don't wait for anyone to have fun. They don't need permission to love. Boredom never lasts long for them because that just means it is time to get creative. They are eager to learn. They take risks. Why would anyone try to grow out of those skills?

So many times this week I have been reminded about how I made it to Seoul, South Korea and this morning I found myself giving another person advice on how to get what they want. The year I spent in Korea was pure evidence of the power of love and how I use my emotions to create my experiences. If you are having a hard time manifesting your dreams, use my story to help you make it happen. Love is the key.

Here is my "Korean dream" story...
In the past I had a very close relationship with television. As a child I am sure I watched more TV than most human beings on the planet. I used to love reading the TV guide only to see how accurate I was.  I knew what was on every channel. Even though we didn't have cable until 2 weeks before I left for college, I was never one to say there was nothing to watch on TV. When I got to college, ironically, I was one of the few people who didn't have a television in their dorm room. This was the first step in my weaning process, and believe me over the years, it has been painful. I used to love soap operas and watched them faithfully for almost 20 years (I started watching them at a very young age). It was the only reason I learned how to use a VCR to record. As I grew more into spiritual knowledge and knowledge of the self, my attachment to TV decreased. In fact, about 3 years ago, I threw away my television. It was brave move. I was so proud of myself and then I opened up my laptop and started watching Hulu. Ha ha!

The great thing about Hulu was that I had better control over what I was watching and I was reading and attempting to meditate a lot more. So per week, I can say I was watching under 3 hours of TV. Then I became unemployed and all of my shows were on hiatus and I really didn't know what to do with myself. I only watch comedies so my selection was very limited and I managed to watch almost everything in the comedy section on Hulu. I was at the end and I happened to see a show (Playful Kiss) that looked kind of anime-ish but without the animation. Out of curiosity and the absence of options, I watched the first episode. It was fascinating, a full hour long, and ridiculously cute. I quickly researched it and realized I was watching a Korean drama. I was hooked. It was everything I thought television should be, long, dramatic, funny, and cute. I found myself always smiling at the screen. I loved the way they approached romantic love, the sound of the language, and the new culture that I was being introduced to. I became entranced by Korean dramas. I felt like for once someone, no, a whole country totally understood me and what I wanted to see.

One day I found a drama entitled Coffee Prince and it was with that drama, I fell in love, real and true love. I remember calling my friend to make the grand announcement and telling her I was in love with all of the sincerity in the world. It was like I was announcing my engagement to be married. From that point on, I knew I had to go to Korea and be with "my people". Keep in mind I was unemployed and running out of money and unable to pay my rent. I would apply and apply and not get anything. I would get so close to having a job and then all of sudden people changed their mind. Had it been another time, I would have lost my mind, but truthfully, I was happily unemployed. I loved what I was doing. I was staying in the house, only leaving for food(I ate healthily), sleeping on a random schedule, meditating, studying spiritual teachings, talking to the moon, and watching Korean dramas. To an outsider, it would have looked incredibly disturbing, but for me, I was happy and in love. I had lost weight, I was pale, physically weak due to inactivity, broke, and in love. Korean dramas became my way of life and when I had to move back home, the first thing I did was made sure I could watch Korean dramas. I attribute my sanity during that time to my love for the dramas, the new culture that I had to experience, and my developing awareness of myself as a spiritual being.

My awareness of peace and my love of K-dramas kept me going. I would study the dramas and try to learn the language. I read blogs. I would schedule my day around k-dramas. I was totally immersed. When people would ask about me, my mother would tell them I was studying Korean culture, and I was. However, when I went out and was asked what I did, I would confidently tell people I watch Korean dramas. There was no shame. Love is truly stronger than pride. From the moment I fell in love, I knew I was going to Korea. I didn't know how, but I knew I was going. When you can't get a job in your field or a simple job at a juice bar and get fired from a tea shop for not selling enough tea all while having a Masters degree, a significant amount of "f#ck it" comes over you. I was just going to go for what I loved and I didn't care if it seemed crazy or irrational. In fact, during those days, the only time I was unhappy was when I was applying for jobs, now that brought on severe depression, so I stopped that nonsense. One day, one of my mom's friends asked about me, and my mom told her about my "Korean studies" and immediately the woman put me in contact with someone she knew who was living and working in Korea. I contacted him and he gave me a clear and concise blueprint on how to get there in one email. I followed his instructions exactly and in less than a year after falling in love with Korea, I landed in Incheon international airport ready to start a truly magical year. I was home, well the world is my home, but you get the point. It was a very involved process, but it never felt like it because I was moving on love.

So what is the lesson? Well like I told the young woman this morning, if you really want to make something amazing happen in your life, you have to be willing to fall in love.  Everything you create in your life, the so-called good and bad, is fueled by your emotions whether you realize it or not. Imagine if you fueled your creations(thought) with love. Love is unstoppable. It will break through all obstacles. Think about what you have done for love, for your boyfriend, girlfriend, wife, husband. Now apply that same love to the things you want to manifest in your life. Can you see what love can do for you? When I met Korean dramas, I liked what I saw and what they had to give and I open up my heart. I was willing to fall in love. I took the plunge, the leap, the risk. When I got to Korea and lived there, was it anything like what I saw the dramas? Yes and mostly no. But because I moved on love, I got more than I could have ever imagined out of the experience. So much more. So so much more. The funny thing is that I haven't seen a drama since leaving for Korea.

Start paying attention to your emotions. How are you really feeling about what you are doing? Start paying attention. Use your habits(non-destructive), personality, and interests to create a love affair. Out of my love affair, I traveled across the world, went paragliding, got scrubbed down by a strong woman, sat in a crystal walled steam room, met amazing new friends, loved the most lovely children, delved deeper into my creativity, discovered buried talents, learned how to swing dance, incorporated more raw foods into my diet, had nepalese food, became more magical, started a love affair with myself, became a Reiki master, started my own growing business ^^, and the list goes on. Working in a bakery for 2 days because I was desperate for a job was extremely hard work, getting to Seoul, South Korea on the wings of love was easy and breezy. Dare to fall in love and see what happens.

Do you need more? Have you closed yourself to love so much that you don't know where to begin? Contact me for a Reiki session at [email protected] and together we will change that.

I write about love a lot. I can talk endlessly about love, and being that this is the season of romantic love, I thought I might share a bit about the type of man I love, my kind of Boo-peice.  This is for all of you who think women only like a certain kind of man or for those who think that there is no such thing as a "good" man. I am fixin' to create one right now. Don't believe me, just read.

I love a playful man, a man who knows how to have fun in any situation. There is nothing worse than seeing a grown man be serious about everything. Yuck. I find it incredibly repulsive actually. See the man I love has a set of gold teeth on hand just in case we need to make a quick fake music video.  He has jokes about preachers, spiritual folks, career folks, and anyone who is a little too serious. He gets me a thong that he knows I will never wear just to dance around in it and make me laugh. He sings me silly songs when I am in the bathroom for "support" and "inspiration". He laughs while waiting in long lines. He will dance slow to fast songs, fast to slow songs, and grind to country music (ow!).  I love an imaginative man. I give him a word and he gives me a fantasy. He is friends with the orange dragon that flies me around at night as well. He sees that the sky is red and that the moon smiles. He is always creating something, never without ideas, and full of magical solutions. He wakes up ready to bring something new into the world and goes to bed knowing he has accomplished it. The gorgeous world he lives in, started in his mind. I love a gentle man. His strength isn't in "fronting" or acting like he is "hard", it is in walking tall in his gentleness. His nature makes people trust him and want to be around him and because of this, he is protected. Because of this, he can protect others. Oh and his massages are painless and transcendent. I love an intelligent man. He knows if he starts quoting other people, I will not be impressed (unless it is the late, great Johnny Cochran). He knows that if he is afraid of something and doesn't address it, I will remind him of emotional intelligence. He knows that when it comes to complaining and being the victim, ain't nobody got time for that. He knows that it feels great to take responsibility for his life. He knows I love a man courageous enough to be who he truly is, no matter how "crazy" that may look. I love a courageous man. He dives into the mystery. He reads something like this and doesn't flinch. He rises to the challenge to follow his destiny. He doesn't need the armor that a large ego provides. He lets his heart lead him. He serenades me with a mediocre voice in a crowded room but his courage and focus makes it sound angelic.

I love a man who loves himself. He doesn't claim to be perfect but because he truly loves himself he likes where he is going and how he is growing. He faithfully commits to expressing who he his. He loves himself because he knows who and what he is. He loves himself so that he may truly love others.

I love a childlike, magical, kind, confident, daring, loving man because that is the only kind of man I am willing to travel this world, create, and live on a farm with.

This love-filled outpouring was brought to you by meditation, Reiki, talking with my ancestors, listening to my heart, and Whitney Houston (again). Now go out there and dare to love what you know you truly love!