lovely artista

"you have always had the power" - a lesson from Oz

2012-01-10T06:39:00.000-08:00

I have, since I was a little girl, loved the Wizard of Oz! I even have a box of Oz collectibles *nerd alert*!
I was watching Oprah last year and she mentioned how it was also one of her favorite movies and her favorite quote was at the end. When Glenda points to Dorothy's ruby red slippers and says, "you have always had the power!" It was such a powerful moment for me, processing that quote. And it was a circle moment realizing all these years this had been "my" movie. I never really heard that moment. It's amazing how things come to you when you need them.

In a few days will mark 3 years.. 3 years ago I went through something incredibly horrible & difficult. Something heartbreaking and devastating. Something like a war zone.. full of carnage... death of dreams & things stolen in a violent way. I have spent the last 3 years healing and trying to grow out of the ashes. And I am still healing

this quote bothers me: "Time heals all wounds"... sorry folks, not entirely true.

Time just changes you but the wounds will always be there. They are a part of you. It's not something that one can just "get over". Yes, there is healing & forgiveness but when you are cut that deep, the scars will always be there. Visible and sometimes tender. One can hope that eventually those scars will become stories to offer hope to others also wounded. That although my body maybe scarred, that I walk proud. That I walk in beauty. Because if I allow those scars to make me ugly that's where the problem would be. But I am choosing to wear them proud. They are piece of me that makes me who I am and will continue to a be part of my story.

And in come those Ruby Red slippers. Gleaming and shinning on my feet.

Sometimes, there are things that only I see. It's competitive and all around not nice. I notice this behavior and it's icky. To be honest.. before it would trigger me and trigger the past and the anger. I would get sucked in and get angry and compete right back. Which goes completely against my nature. I HATE competition.
So, again.. this person will start this "game" it feels frustrating, irritating and painful... and again, I feel like.. really, am I the only one that sees this??? And then... I felt God speaking to me last night,

"You are not the only one who sees what is going on. I see it too. But you need to look down at your feet and remember YOU have the power to rise above it. You have the power to click your heels and go home where it's safe. I will take care of this and I will take care of you"

I have the power. The power to rise above any situation.

{My OZ board on Pinterest}

Box & circles

2012-01-05T21:50:00.001-08:00

Oh man.Here I am. A mess of my own doing.Ever get so worked up in your own brain it's hard to get out? I was kind of on the edge of feeling like I didn't really belong.

And then in to these panicked feelings I succumbed.This is where my mind was.. There are groups.. Circles.. Of people who associate. I always seem to be inbetween. I don't really fit in with the mom's circle, mainly because motherhood isn't my whole world, it's just a part of me. Or the "artists" circles.. because, well don't really wanna be there but only part time. And the singles, whom both my best friends are but don't & can't fully relate there. There's so many other circles it's disorientating. And somedays. I wallow in my own crap and I feel left out and alone.

Because I teeter on the edge. Mostly because I can't commit because I am a bit ADD. Then there is the past. And things/persons trigger it. And usually this intermingles with my already fragile ego. And then you have, wallowing.

Sad. Lame. My analogy for myself is a glass box.I tend to stay in one. I can see the worldand interact to an extent but I am protected. I can't get hurt. And in my brain.. this works. Only it's silly, to live in a box. Because sometimes it gets cloudy and I miss out on what's outside. But I think, "I'm safe" so that's what matters. So, I have written this sad rambling down. So it's out there and not within me.Ok, none of this makes sense. All I know is... I need take astep outside of my box. Maybe it will be scary trying to find my way in the midst of circles but then I won't be in a box either... and that is good.

2012

2012-01-03T11:14:00.000-08:00

Ahh.. holidays have flown by. The last lingering Christmas things are still up. Only to be put away until next year.

And.. the best. A new year. For me 2011 flew by. It was such a year of "grit your teeth and bear it" because what's around the corner will be worth the sacrifice.

I don't Journal but I added this to my christmas wish list and my mom bought it for me.

A five year journal. & on each day a simple question is asked. It will be a great way to be able to look back on myself and where I was over the years.

The first question was "what is your mission?"

my response was,

"To be more aware of life around me. To discover not only who I am but who I am called to be."

This the year where I start this journey. I will be THIRTY in March and so ready to be rid of the "weight" of my 20's.

Here's to the beginning of discovery.

well, I am here..

2011-12-16T08:46:00.001-08:00

ah ok. Lots of thoughts in my head.I have arrived. In Florida. The Keys. It's absolute paradises. And I get to live here!?!? whhaaa'?My husband & I are back togetha, foreva' <--- nerd alert.Ok, mini note. This the first time we have ever NOT lived in an apartment, town home, dorm or our last lovely locale if my mother in laws home. We are in a house overlooking a canal. Surrounded by a tropical yard. Yep. Crazy. It's a large 2 bedroom (only downsize, as all 3 kids are in one room) but that's about it. Near an amazing school. Our first house.. yes, it's a rental but it's still a big deal.Ok, so that is a big deal. Second note. First time in um, 8 years that my husband has a job that he ISNT't working on the weekend. An entire weekend off, together? Crazy. Oh and he's home by 4-4:30 ish. What is this strange life? You see we went from Ministry (always working Sundays), to working at a boarding school, also weekends. To working full time, plus school which meant work on the weekend had to happen in order for us to survive. So yet again, I say, kind of a big deal.The first few days here, every time I looked out the window I felt like crying.. happy crying.We've been through shit the last few years.And for once I feel like I am living a normal life. And normal, is good. Because its a beautiful normal.

how I wrongly labeled myself.

2011-11-18T18:50:00.001-08:00

I had a great aha moment.

Although I have labeled this blog and my email address and many other sites as "lovely artista"

My calling is not "Artist"

I love art. LOVE it. I am creative and sometimes crafty. But if it were to become me.. it would destroy my heart. Finally I realized that being creative is an aspect to me but it isn't me.

My calling is not here... it is out there and I am opening myself up to now be available to it. It's the most freeing thing as because for so long I thought well.. since I love creativity.. I guess I have to be an artist? I guess this is what I am supposed to do? Maybe one day.. I will use a camera for my hobby. Which is the only thing that has every deeply called me is a camera. Pictures. What I know though is that it's not my calling.

And how exciting.. to be on the verge of finding what I am called to. What my place in this universe is.

I am open.

I am abandoning what I once thought I was. Stepping out of that box and begining a new journey.

growing

2011-11-18T18:44:00.001-08:00

I figured I would write this from my phone. I am rarely on my computer due to back problems which means little time to share.

Something is happening within me. I feel finally that my soul is ready to awaken. It has been a long road but I feel like I am finally reaching some peace. I am a huge fan of inner healing, counseling, life coaches ect. For me, I have needed to hear and learn from these types of avenues. A little quick background.

I was born and raised as a pastors kid & on top of that a missionary kid. I was born in Mexico. Moved to Switzerland & Spain when I was 5 and returned to Mexico when I was 8. We were part of a very charismatic church. So I have always been aware of the holy spirit. I left Mexico at 16 to go to boarding school. It was my choice.

Since I was little I have always had a keen ear to hear what the spirit was saying to me. Listening to my inner voice. Being a pastors kid, your relationship with God is very much on display. For most of my life I was very open about it. Over the years that has changed.

But now I regard my personal relationship with God as just that, personal. It's sacred to me. Others would call me a "Luke warm" Christian. I rarely post scriptures on my Facebook page or share the gospel. I think those that do are awesome. Maybe that's their calling. For so long I felt ashamed that I am not an open "live out loud" Christian. And i am sure many people harshly disagree with that. But I have also felt and am learning that it's OK. It's not my calling. I don't need to feel guilt about that. I know my relationship with God and it's personal, sacred, deep, moving and beautiful and I know i am in his pocket.

I was watching lifeclass and Oprah was talking about the energy we bring into a room. And how we all have a light and some people's light shines brighter. It really shook me. For my early twenties I carried this "nobody likes me" mentality. I took people's comments about the camera I used as their saying because I used that brand my pictures were worthless . I felt there were cliques & women hated me. Oh yeah I carried a crap load of negative energy. Which has made me realize, I brought all that energy into the room. Why would people want to hang out with that? I was self conscience and afraid. My light wasn't bright.

Which brings me back to. I have many non Christian friends. I feel strongly I am NOT called to preach at them. But rather have true authentic relationship with them. Being myself. I believe that as I grow into who I am and who I am called to be. Growing in my personal relationship with God. Allowing my light to grow and the energy I bring into the room to be brighter. I believe that this is one of the ways I am too share my light. Without judging or criticism, just simply allowing my light to overflow and reach the darkened hearts and weary hearts.

This is my rambling for today. Pretty much just beginning to vocalize who I am and loving it. Loving that I am me and that what I bring to the table isn't wrong it's just different and God wants to use me. For who I am.

sigh.. ego.

2011-10-30T11:07:00.000-07:00

To catch up a bit. It's been kind of a draining few weeks. Baby was sick and living with my mother in law has been, well. good but it's hard to find my own space.

Since I have been watching Oprah's lifeclass. It's been so eye opening. I am finding how ready I am for begining the journey to find myself and find my calling.

It's hard when people put you into a box of "creative person" while I love it. It's not what I believe my calling is. I do not want a label, "artist" "photographer" "painter"... I just don't. I don't need a title to feel validated. And for me the artistic isn't my calling. I believe it's a part of me that feeds my soul but if it were my calling I wouldn't love it like I do. I love seeing art.. LOVE it. but for me, it's just an outlet.. a hobby if you will. And you know what, I am liking it this way :)

I am discovering that for me, working with people is where I come alive. When I was a foster parent I worked one on one with the moms and truly loved and fostered respect between us. I never viewed them as the bad guys but rather just hurt people. So I am opening my eyes to the possibilities of my calling involves women and helping other women overcome. We will see. This whole series has been really been pushing me towards truth.

Since starting this series. I am so much more aware of what is ego and what is my true self. It's been so refreshing. I feel more confident.

And really believing that "I am not the thoughts in my head"

living AWARE.

2011-10-14T14:39:00.000-07:00

It's been 2 weeks since my husband has been in Florida working. It's been long. I feel exhausted.

A few highlights.. totally knocked out my side mirror in our new van. Spent 2 1/2 hrs at the dealership waiting for it to be fixed, alone.. with all three kids. Wanted to do something fun with them, as we had come to a bigger city to do so. But, by the end of it they had lunch in Target and went to World Market for some treats and called it a day. haha. oh yeah.

Pretty much, the space I have been in. A zombie. And then Oprah's life class started. Don't hate. I love Oprah. I think she speaks a lot of wisdom. I can take it and then apply my relationship with Jesus and seriously, it has helped me grow so much.

Here are some thoughts on it all:

--------------------------------------------------------

I pretty much cried through the whole first episode and thought I would share my notes from it and my thoughts. First some vulnerable thoughts on the space I am in before I enter "life class notes".

I struggle a lot with identity and I am a very much a non competitive person. So when I feel competition whether in photography, being a wife, mom, artist whatever... I bow out of the race. I essentially give up. I would rather not participate in a race. It doesn't make it fun for me. Other people operate in that competition mode and thrive and whatever. So essentially the last several years due to some circumstances I have given up on myself.

The competition of it all has stripped me of the desire.

So I lead into my notes and what I have learned from lesson one:

Lifeclass 10/10/11

connect to your true self.

"Operating out of ego means that your operating out of fear. Operating out of fear means your always going to be scared and running for your life instead of being in alignment with your life."

This concept brought me to tears. I have been running from my dreams. From my life. Instead of aligning with what God has in store for me. I just simply have been to scared to dream. The feeling that it will be taken from me, it haunts me. So I would rather keep those dreams sacred. Because I am afraid if I put myself out there it will be competed against and stolen.. or downgraded because of other's opinions. And what I realized is that all these rambled thoughts are my ego, my flesh. Not my true self. Being in alignment with myself... my TRUE self is my new journey. Not trying to find an art or running from the creative but stopping and finding me.

"Remaining conscience and connected to that peace. The piece of yourself, that knows you are NOT the thoughts in your head. You are NOT identifying with thoughts or things that surround you."

& more tears. I need to connect with that peace. And the me inside that knows.. "YOU ARE NOT the thoughts" and I need to say, No, I will not align with you. & surrounding myself with people who will cheer me on. But more importantly the challenge is on me to reside and I mean bury in deep to that that piece/peace of me.

"That you are aware and live in the space of awareness and are connected to it in such a way that you move from the space of peace"

My best friend and I were just talking about being aware. We were saying how approaching our big 3O we wanted to begin to live our life more aware. And not let life just slip by us, whether with work, kids, depression. Whatever. We need to live in awareness and CONNECT to life! And to the holy spirit! We hate superficiality and never have been superficial but now it's time to apply our depth to our awareness.

"The ego is a dissociation from your true sense of self worth.
The ego is a false sense of self. "

For me, ego also means "our flesh". The stuff that comes out when we are not align with the us that God created us to be. And with finding and being aware of who we are, We become more in tune with the real us. Then we are able to allow his spirit to move through us in such a beautiful and authentic way.

There were a few ladies on the show that their stories. Here is a highlight of the first:"It isn't possible that people can hurt me. They are just giving me their observations. I'm giving it meaning. I get to choose what that meaning is."

Um. HELLO! Seriously. All those thoughts about what people think about me or people's actions or whether or not I was deleted on facebook. I mean. Really. Wake up, Erin! Or Those friends that have "hurt" me through their competition and ignoring my "art". I, ME, MYSELF allowed their words and actions to have meaning. I did that. There is another person that has had a lot of control over my life over the last few years and I was the one that gave, what she did to me, meaning. Therefore giving her more power.

"Lady 2 - because I'm wanted to be here. Because I am alive I am loved. That my internal worth was set for me the day I was born. That I don't have to seek worth out in the world & I am enough."

Quite simply, I am enough.

Lusting after approval & appreciation. & resentful that you aren't getting anything in return. Then it is not unconditional Love. You have added conditions to your love by expecting certain things back.

Hello. So many of us do this. Myself included. Oh, I will just be a mom and stay at home and blah blah blah. Seriously? Hello resentment. WE have the choice, that in the midst of life to "FIND THE PEACE" to align ourselves with truth and to be AWARE. OK, so today.. maybe I am not leaving the house and mundane chores is all I do. Wah wah wah. Let me wallow some more. OR I can stop. Breathe. Align and see the beauty that is. Turn on some frickin' music and dance and sing in the kitchen with my 3yr old. Yeah life can be stressful but I am tired of being resentful. Because I am the one giving into the fear. Bottom line. I am the one stopping me. Pathetic, really. I don't need to mope and be passive aggressive. I need to BE aggressive for my dreams. I want to LOVE with out demanding anything back. My dreams are MY responsibility. Amen.

OK, that felt good to say.

"It's never to late to discover the truth of who we are.

You alone are enough.

No thing ever matters in terms of defining who you are.

What's holding me back?"

And bottom line.. it's fear.

And living in an aware state and aligning with lies. Enough of that. Part of this new chapter is aligning with peace and the piece of me that is aligned with the Peace of God.

10 years.

2011-10-03T10:42:00.000-07:00

well.. my husband left 3 days ago and started work today down in beautiful Key West.

I miss him.

First day he was gone I locked myself out the house.

Second day I moved into my daughters room. We will be roomies until we move down there. Totally awesome rooming with an 8yr old. totally.

Third day.. today. I was up at 6:30am to take my daughter to school. yep, I said that right.. 6:30 AM. gross. Took a full load to our storage unit. I felt so bad ass. No really, I totally did. See my husband is that guy that does everything for me. Including a fair share of dishes and most of our laundry. So today I had to haul a full van load to take to our storage unit and some things to take to the dump. Now granted it took me 15 minutes to open the storage door.. oh yeah, I was pulling on that thing.. wouldn't budge. I was like 'crap, really!?' then I realized that I hadn't slid the latch open. oh yeah.. so awesome. see... I am a TOTAL bad.ass. total. Oh, I even sold some tools on craigslist. I was slighting worried it would be a "craigslist killer" but it wasn't much to my relief.

I miss him. A lot. I do. He is my perfect partner and he makes my life easy.

I have always been fiercly independent and in a lot of ways I still am. I am not and have never been the "princess" type, gag. But since we have been together he has always been right there to partner with me and to make my life run smooth.

He is an awesome dad. Changes dirty diapers and does bedtime. Yep... awwwwssssoome.

This september marked 10 years of knowing each other. We met at a Starbucks. There was a group of us that had gone after church. He saw me.. totally flirted with me. He thought I was "TALL and HOT!" I kind of slightly ignored him. Maybe. Yeah, kinda did. I was in a "I don't want a boyfriend for a whole year-taking a break from men" stage. Needless to say.. we got married 8 months later. And so our story began..

It has had some really hard times. My hearts been broken and is still healing but our love today is absolutely in know way what it was. It's better.

Going to share some picturtes. He bought me a long pearl necklace. Wrapped in newspaper and duct tape. Very sweet. We went to a Starbucks. Took all the kids with us. It was fun. And I think our oldest, Grace, loved being a part of our remembering.

So that's all.. for this post. Until next time.

The presents & card he gave me

10 years of knowing each other

Our last date before he left

Us packing. Although, we actually had a ton of fun.

Father & son, night before he left.

Reading to the girls, night before he left

nomads.

2011-09-27T22:49:00.000-07:00

Today..

I am starting this blog. Brand new, from scratch. Oh wait. I've had this page since '06? hm. I think it's time? I think I am ready.

Blog objectives. To be myself & to honestly document our life.

Reason I am starting, brand new.. from scratch? We are moving and becoming nomads.

Nomadic people (Greek: νομάδες, nomádes, "those who let pasture herds"), commonly known as itinerants in modern-day contexts, are communities of people who move from one place to another, rather than settling permanently in one location.

Now, we have technically, kind of, already been nomads for the last um, (yes.. i say um.. a lot) 3 1/2 years. In which we have gone from California to Oregon *siiiigh* to Tennessee (our current residence) and in a few weeks Key West, FL

And in the last 3 1/2 ish years we have been through:

career change - moving - pregnancy - baby - marriage crisis - restoration - moving - pregnancy - another baby - husband in school+full time work - in-laws and now moving.... again.

(My husband has taken a dream job with an awesome design/build company which means, we move with each new project. His first project is taking us to Key west Florida)

Yes, my head is now spinning just reading this.

It's crazy.

I worry about my kids.

I worry about making friends.

I worry about how crazy this all is.

I worry. (You will come to know this about me, I worry)

But I also feel...

Peace (another trait of mine which compliments the worrying)

We have been through.. quite a journey. To put it mildly. I have been through a lot of hurt. And a lot of pain. And a lot of crap. And quite frankly. I am done. I am tired of allowing the fly into the house and allowing it's terrible buzzing around my head. The fly is going down.

I love how this next "destination" is a vacation spot. I think it's what we need. Just us and none of the other noise. A year to begin to discover who we are as a family and dig deep into our roots of who we are. Roots don't have to be planted in a location but can be planted deep within family.

I want to be a better mom and a better me. It's time. My husband has done so much work for himself, for me, for his kids. He's changed and fought for me. Now.. it's my turn, to fight for myself.