Secrets to Life
Good, I’m glad you decided to join me here! I absolutely love life...and the truth is, a lot of people can’t say the same. And honestly, that doesn’t sit well with me at all. Life is too short to live in misery, hating yourself or the world you live in. I want you to be able to fall madly in love with your very existence, enjoying the abundance of life and the journey we are all on in our lifetime. Our days, hours, and very minutes are numbered...and too many of us spend that precious time living in fear of the future, angst about the present, and regret over the past. Comparison and conformity are killers of contentment. Yet most people feel the pressures to engage in these acts, often on a daily basis--no wonder they are miserable! I am begging you not to be one of them; please do not try to be anyone other than yourself. The story of life includes the role that you were uniquely born to play; the world needs you to be you, the other positions have all been filled. I know that it can feel intimidating and confusing to travel this journey of becoming your own true self without a map. This page holds some of the secrets to life and profound truths that I have encountered throughout my own exploration and wanderings. Some of what follows I authored myself, excerpts from my story as it relates to the experience of being human. Other pieces and quotations I have gathered from myriad sources which have inspired and impacted me, and I hope may be a beacon of light and hope for you as well. As I come across new wisdom and inspiration, I will add to this page; for it, as well as each one of us, is a work in progress...
Ascended from Ashes
I started a songbird
with a sweet melody.
A joyful song in my soul;
I was happy and free.
One day my life merged with another;
I dreamt of creating a new harmony...
Instead, expectations and plans created a cage
that had been carefully crafted for me.
Years of neglect stole the song from my soul
and I forgot the feeling of free.
Denial insisted this cage was where I belonged
Fearing the truth of my captivity.
So I polished and gilded the bars till they shined,
trapped without hope in my sorrow.
Silent and lonely, my dreams were long gone
I began to care not for tomorrow.
Now only a shell of my former self,
An ornament abandoned to rust,
Unsure that existing could be something more
Bereft of love, direction, and trust.
Then I was reminded of my soul’s forgotten song;
memory beckoning to me.
Pointed out that I had the key all along.
Only I could set myself free...
Free from the prison my life had become:
A cage built of lies that “should be”;
Free if only I faced all my fears,
The path to freedom lied within me.
Doubt was at war with my soul’s deepest longing,
Knowing to stay meant I would not survive;
I gazed at the sky through new eyes
full of hope--
Determined, at long last, to thrive.
I struck the match, setting fire to my cage
Liberty at the cost of destruction
The life I had built, an inferno of pain
giving way to new freedom and passion.
The wild heart inside me began to soar
before I could take to the skies.
Finally able to break free from this life
which was built out of heartache and lies.
I glance at my gilded prison in flames
All around me blazes and crashes
And now, as the Phoenix I have become,
I rise:
Ascended from Ashes.
--Raya Soleil
Quotes
"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."
--Maya Angelou
"We're only as sick as the secrets we keep."
--Maria Nemeth
"We must not allow other people's limited perceptions to define us."
--Virginia Satir
The tragedy of concern over what
SHOULD BE
Is the missed opportunity of what
WOULD BE
If you only dared to dream of what
COULD BE
--Brianne LoTempio
"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting."
--e.e. cummings