Carmen's Creative Works

It is the first day of the New Year and there is so much I want to manifest this year.  I do not want to be at this point in time a year later and not have achieved the goals I have set out for myself.  Last year was hard in so many ways and a blessing in others.  I realized after checking the many journals I have bought over the years and started to write in, that the same theme kept resonating throughout and each time I would start again with the hopes to make some of my creative dreams come true.  What holds me back…. not just me, but the masses of people that long for something different than what they are doing in the present time.  What keeps us running on that hamster wheel getting no where.  I say that and yet know that I have grown and continued to move towards this time and place that I am in now.

I suppose in some ways I am only frustrated at how long it takes to get to what I feel is more of my life’s purpose.  I don’t say this to reduce the importance of everything I have done in the past, only that for a long time I have wanted to be able to do more with my creative skills and my passion for healing and helping others.  I have accepted the limitations of my illness and chronic pain and yet there are times when it seems to win and I feel defeated by it.  A few days ago I made a picture about the pain I struggle against and I shared it with the note below the image….

For the last two days I have been fighting the pain that is fibromyalgia and migraines… and this is the image that I created with feelings of despair and yet hopeful (candles) that I will not allow the chronic pain to define me or steal my days and trap me….

I am frustrated because I want to do so much.  I have had a week of holidays and already two days have been reduced to being gentle with myself and trying not to let the pain be all of what my day is….  I found an insightful page from the planner I am using created by “Goddess Leonie” about making a list of things to do when days suck and it made me laugh because I’ve made lists like that for high pain days…. it’s just that now that I have been working towards what I really want to do, I hate being delayed by the pain that makes me just want to curl up and sleep it away.  I do the nurturing things I need to do, wonderful bubble baths, warm blankets and a heat pad, music, movies, reading… and yet my spirit is restless and frustrated with a body that cannot get past the limitations of pain…. This image was created to perhaps say in ways my words can not express about the feelings….

And now I have only one day left of vacation and while I have done some work towards those things I hoped to do on vacation, I haven’t come close to what I had hoped to do.  I feel more strongly than I ever have to make changes in order for it to happen.  I started today by having breakfast, big deal someone might say but for me it is.  I need to change what and how I eat so that my body is getting the nutrition it needs throughout the day.  I went for a walk along the river, which was wonderful.  Came home and wrote in my planner and needed a nap because that small amount of exercise took its toll.  Now its evening and the reality of a vacation having gone by too quickly is depressing.  I’m working hard not to let it bring me down but the feelings are there just the same.  Depression is a beast that swoops in when you are feeling most weak and vulnerable and I will be using the energy of my spirit to protect against it.  My mind works in images and I compare the battle with depression similar to the that of fighting off a winged creature in medieval times….  So I will equip my heart with armor and be prepared to defend myself with a sword of protection….

You will not win.  I will not let the voice inside my head tell me that I can not do the things I long to do.  I will not let the old tapes replay in my mind that rob me of my dreams….

This is a New Year and it will be one that I focus on making dreams come true!