Life is what you make it

Life can throw a bigger curveball than expected.  It is important that one keeps a positive attitude and outlook during this time.  when a person believes that he or she has already achieved his or her goals then things will flow more smoothly.  The negative aspects of a situation will not seem so terrible as they might look at first glance.

The smaller things are what one needs to remember when faced with hard times.  Health mobility, and thoughts almost always are taken for granted by most people.  If someone has the ability to get up in the morning without an issue, then  he or she can physically make things better for him or herself.  Thoughts are what dictates what a person does on a day-to-day basis.  If someone chooses thoughts that allow him or her to be adaptable,  then a positive outcome will be reached.  The more a person thinks about the struggle he or she is facing the more difficult it will become. whatever one puts out into the world will come back to him or her later on down the road.  This is why showing gratitude for what one has is important. The more a person is happy with what he or she does have, then the faster other desired goods will come into one's life. 

Life is made up of whatever one focuses on the most.  Options are always available to everyone, but a lot of them are not taken into consideration due to the fear of things not working out.  The options that are passed up could be the best way to change one's situation.  The key is to be open to anything that presents itself and things just might go in the desired direction.

Is Meditation Right for Everyone?

Meditation is a practice that a lot of people get into when their lives start going downhill.  One’s health could also take a turn for the worse as well.  Most use meditation in order to calm down from a stressful situation.  The only thing people do not realize is that the practice of meditation may end up changing the way they perceive the world.  Unintentional changes may occur if meditation is performed regularly over an extended period of time. 

When one meditates, he or she calls back to his her own energy as well as the energies of the universe as a whole.  The first thing an individual will most likely notice is that minor ailments will heal after about a week or two.  My arm was always sore from opening up the bathroom door at my job.  My arm healed up within a week after I started meditating regularly.  Falling asleep can occur to beginners even if one is not lying down.  An individual might experience a lucid dream when this transpires..

After meditating for about three months, an individual might be able to feel his or her own aura.  He or she might write it off as some body parts falling asleep, but this is not the case.  An individual will eventually learn that there is nothing wrong with him or her whatsoever.  What is actually happening is that the person’s awareness is growing.  The aura that is felt always existed, but it always went unnoticed by the individual.    

With all of these changes occurring, one’s beliefs about many things will also go through a metamorphosis.  I used to eat beef semi regularly before I started to meditate.  I stopped eating beef almost altogether five months after I started meditating.  The same most likely has happened to a lot of others. 

One will also start to notice synchronicites.  The individual will start learning that coincidences are nothing more than things with similar energy coming together.  When a person thinks or says a certain word to him or herself, he or she will notice that something else will resemble the same thought somewhere else in the room regardless if it is written form, from the TV or spoken from someone else in another seat.

If the career a person has is not doing him or her any good, then regular meditation will eventually lead the individual to rethink what he or she is doing in life.  This happened to me as well.  I was working in a call center trying to achieve arbitrary daily statistics because I thought that doing this would actually bring me success.  My job was the only thing that I cared about.  After I started meditating on a regular basis, I realized that I needed to start writing again.  I also came to the conclusion that I was a healer and needed to help other people take their power back. 

Meditation has many benefits, but it can also have quite a few drawbacks depending on the eye of the beholder.  If an individual likes his or diet, friends, job, residence, town, interests, and hobbies, then he or she might not want to meditate very often if at all.  If a person is happy with living in three dimensions and has no interest in learning what coexists along with it, then it is advised not to meditate.  If an individual likes his or her own opinions and does not want their views challenged in any way, then meditation should be avoided at all costs.  In short, if a human being likes his or life the way it is and does not want to change anything about it, then he or she should not meditate under any circumstances. 

No one warned me that my world would be turned upside down if I engaged in daily meditation.  I went through a small depression because I felt as if the circumstances in my life were forcing me to become something I felt I would not have chosen willingly. After closer examination, I realized that my old life really was not that great in the first place.  This new beginning was the best thing that could ever happen to me.  I figured that I would give an advisory caution to those new or thinking about getting into meditation.  Once a person’s perspective on the world changes, then he or she will never be able to revert back to old thinking patterns.  One needs to make sure that the practice of meditation is for him or her before he or she makes it a daily habit.    

A Fragment in time that Changed my life Forever

Author's note:  (I just wanted to share something that I wrote a little over a year ago.  I recently have been a little down and out, but then I realized how far that I have come.  My thoughts are a lot more coherent now than ever before.  This is because of all of those who have taken time to read what I have written.  If no one read what I have posted, then I would have never gone anywhere.  Thanks goes out to all that have stood by me all of this time.)  

A person’s career is one of the most important aspects in his or her life.  Choosing the right path in regards to employment can be rather hard task due to pressures from the outside world.  A closer look at the personal traits of an individual will reveal the career that is best suited for him or her.

I am a heavily introverted person and tend to be receptive of the world instead of active.  I am slow to process information while evaluating the world around me before I come to any conclusions whatsoever.  I have a constant barrage of thoughts going through my head every second of the day.  I am a very imaginative human being despite coming off as mechanical in everything that I do.  Unordinary thoughts pop into my head at times when they shouldn’t.  I used to get angry at myself for being this way.  I wanted to be like everyone else and focus on the task at hand as it is presented to me.  However, I was not meant to be this way.  My inner world will always be a lot stronger than my outer world.  My inner world will dominate me even if I am in a room with hundreds of others.  When I lose my voice within my head due to sounds from the outer world, then I get frustrated and want to leave the area.  This is because I tend to pop in and out of existence when my inner world is threatened.  Without my thoughts, I am just a corpse, and I cease to be a human being. 

Working in call center poses huge problems in regards to my personality type.  I take calls back to back with no breathing room in between.  The loud beeping gets annoying quickly each time a call comes through.  The cell phone reception these customers have is complete garbage.  The volume of the static is unbearable in a lot of cases.  This means that my inner world is taken away from me.  This means that I pop in and out of existence while on the phone with other people.  This can create confusion in my speech, and so I will have to end up restating information multiple to customers due to my inner world and outer world competing for my attention.  My mind does not know which one to pick, which results into speech that can sometimes seem nonsensical. 

Break times are also a huge deal for me within the confines of the call center.  We have two fifteen minute breaks within an eight and half hour period.  There is a half hour time slot for lunch that can be taken away if calls keep coming through at an alarming right.  In situations such as this, everybody works through lunch.  The company provides, but what is the point when no one has time to eat it?  A person can only pack so much food into his or her cheek.  Everyone is also required to work mandatory on call on weeks assigned to them.  If a person has an early schedule, then he or she could be working up to four hours extra without any extra break.  People need adhere to the schedule that is given.  There is a bit of leeway regarding the time someone’s paid break begins and ends due to how long the last call runs before that individual can use his or her break time.    Going to the bathroom twice in ten to twelve hours is not enough for anyone with a sensitive pelvic floor.  I am sure others with a standard functioning pelvic floor are suffering as well, but to a lesser degree. 

The way the call center operates with sick days is flat out ridiculous.  If a person calls out sick, then he or she has to call three different numbers.  The employee needs to call his or her supervisor, the attendance line, and the human resources department.  The human resources department should not have any say on sickness whatsoever.  I had a few issues regarding potential gingivitis and pharyngitis.  I also had a few doctor appoints and a meeting with a lawyer that I needed to be present for during the winter months of 2016.  Because the company was in the middle of high bill season, I was not allowed take off for any reason.  I used sick time in order to go to all of my appointments.  It turns out that the company no longer offers the option to use the floating holidays everyone receives on a yearly basis as sick time.  I was formally written up for being sick too often.  One of days I was sick was due to the company encouraging me to go home due to coughing up a storm for a week straight.  The reason that this issue transpired is because the departments within the company that I work for do not communicate with one another.  Every time I have called down to another department to ask a question about a process for a customer’s account, the person on the other line has no clue what needs to be done.  No one talks to one another about anything or anyone.  Once an individual moves from the call center to another department, then he or she forgets all the knowledge that was learned during his or her time taking calls.  An employee should carry knowledge from one department to another even if the knowledge learned does not relate directly to the workload that the employee will be responsible for.  What is the point of doing a job if you are not going to learn anything from doing it? 

All of these events have led me to contemplate about embarking on a new career path.  It is clear that a highly sensitive individual such as myself has no business in a call center.  This call center is for extraverted who react to situations quickly without any kind reflection.  I do not know how to smooth things over in a nice way.  I am not overly blunt with the customers that I talk to everyday, but I do not know how to say things in order to alleviate the angry emotions that the customers are experiencing.  This is because I have to stick to the “script” that I was given in training.  If I cannot interact with the public in an honest and fulfilling way, then what is the point of my job other than to appease people?  If I cannot apply the skills I have learned throughout the entire company, then how can I take my career seriously when all I am doing work to keep myself busy. 

Because of all of the hustling that I have been doing, my health has declined.  I do not eat or drink the way that I should.  My lower back arms hurt from being leaned over a desk all day.  The door to the bathroom is also ridiculously heavy, and has definitely hurt my arm.  Eight hours of sleep is not enough for a person with a dominant inner world.  I will sleep for eight hours and wake up feeling drained.  My throat is dry and scratchy all the time.  I actually was diagnosed with adult allergies.  I am not one to question doctors too often, but the diagnosis I was given was not correct.  I think my issue is that my voice and throat gets tired of yelling at people because no one understands me when I speak at a regular.  This constant yelling has caused me to have throat issues.  The lack of sleep probably contributes to my sinus problems.  Eight hours of sleep is not enough recharge my body.  The customers steal every ounce of energy that I have.  This means that I have no energy to engage in any extracurricular activities on the weekends.  The weekends are spent sleeping or listening to music in order to build up the strength for the following work week.  When I finally took a vacation, my health improved in just three days.  I no longer had pain in my back or arm.  My mental energy could be used in a productive manner.  I did not feel like I had to rest up for two days in a row just to be able to survive.  One might say that almost every person does not like his or her job.  While that may be true, not everyone has a job that impacts their well-being so much that there they cannot do anything else.  These issues go beyond not liking my job.  It is destroying my essence as a living creature.  A highly sensitive introvert like me needs a career path that meets my need to create while also allowing me time alone to recharge my energy.  Everyone has to face obstacles that go against who he or she is as a person at some point, but no one should be forced to act the opposite way to how he or she actually is every day of his or her life.  I need a career that allows me to put my best foot forward.  Anyone can do anything for a short amount of time and be fine.  For example, suppose that someone is great at working with appliances and electronics obtains a job as an editor for a publishing company.  He or she might be good at the job for a while, but his or her extraverted needs will not be met sitting inside a room at a computer not talking to people on a regular basis.  This person will eventually feel as though he or she is wasting his or her talent editing papers.  This individual would most likely feel more actualized working as a plumber instead of remaining locked in one room all day long.  Who you are will eventually catch up with you.  A person has to choose what is important to him or her.  Should a person sacrifice his or her health for financial security, or should he or she feel good about him or herself from a mental perspective and sacrifice material perks to feel healthy on the inside? 

The answer is pretty clear in my situation.  I need to leave the extraverted life of the call center in order for my health to improve.  I will have to worry about money for a while, but in the end, I will feel better about my mental state.  I will be able to be creative and feel as though I have enough energy to finish things to completion.  There will be some tough times ahead, but I have weathered through the employment storm before, and I can do it again.  I need to find my purpose in life.  The universe is not going to put me through sixteen surgeries and a gender transformation just so I can sit inside of a call center and not be able to interact with others as an authentic human being.      

The Challenge that is Forgiveness

Everyone goes through tough situations in their lives.  During these trying times, a person can be in a relationship with someone else that is not fulfilling whatsoever.  The relationship continues to exist because both parties feel that they need one another for a specific reason.  Neither party will realize that he or she could have existed without the other until a major event drives them apart.  I had this type of relationship with my father.

The relationship my father and I shared was based mostly around material goods.  I have a condition known as Cerebral Palsy.  This makes it difficult for me to traverse any kind of incline.  At the time, I thought I was unable to obtain my own place.  I worked ten to twelve hours a day at my call center job.  I remained ignorant to every other aspect of my life.  I did not really notice my father’s health like I should have.  I was too busy trying to climb the corporate ladder to really focus on my father’s health.  He took thirteen pills twice a day.  Most of the pills were for difficulties with the heart.  My father had quadruple bypass surgery in May of 2004.  He wanted to get fried chicken his first day home from the hospital.

I did not do a lot at home.  The house was always a mess because my father never put anything away.  I was too drained from arguing with people about their bills to even give a crap.  I did clean my father’s messes up quite a few times, but then I got tired of it.  He used to yell at me for taking out the trash because it was “easier” for him to do it.  The only problem is that my father never did it.  The trash bins would overflow, and he would let everything sit.

My father became a bump on a log outside of driving me back and forth to work every day.  He would just sit on the couch and watch TV without moving.  His fingers on one hand had turned brown due to lack of bathing.  I told him to go wash his hands while we were at a local diner.  He dunked his hands in a cup of water a couple times and said “there, I washed my hands.”  My father then laughed about as if it was funny that he was so disgusting.  I wanted to punch my father in face so bad that day.  I could not take it anymore.  He had not taken a shower in months.  I am surprised my father made it as long as he did.  If that were me, I would have died a long time ago. 

 The day before my father went to the hospital, I told him that it was his choice whether or not he wanted to live or die.  He went to his primary doctor the next day, and the doctor told him to go to the hospital.  I got out of work around 5:30 P.M.  I waited for an hour for my father to pick me up.  I eventually decided to take a taxi home.  When I got to the house, I did not see the HHR in the driveway.  I did not know what had happened.  I waited around for a few hours until it got dark.  I called my supervisor on the phone, and he told me to call the police.  The police came and took down all the information for my father.  They even went to the local diner to look for him.  The police did not get anywhere and decided to call around to local hospitals.  My father was found at Northwest Hospital in Randallstown.  It turned out that he told the head nurse not to tell anyone where he was located.   This kind of thinking made no sense.

After my father passed away, I found out that he canceled his death benefits with Verizon.  In other words, there was no money to pay off the loans that my father borrowed against the house after the original mortgage was all squared away.  Who would actually do that though?  Why couldn’t my father just tell me that he did not have the money to send me to college?  I could have studied philosophy on my own if I was still interested in the subject matter.  I knew that there were loans against the house, but I did not realize that the benefits policy was canceled.  My father and I got into a fight one time, and he threatened to cancel out the policy, but I never thought anyone would be dumb enough to actually do it.

It has been almost ten months since my father went to the hospital. I will never understand why my father could not trust me enough to tell me the truth.  Then again, it is not as if I made a serious effort to know certain things when he was alive.  I was too absorbed the hive mindset from my job to even think about my own personal needs let alone someone else’s.  I work on letting the past go every day.  Some days are more difficult than others.  I will eventually forgive my father completely.  I will also never forget the lessons I learned from the relationship that I had with him.      

         

Using your Talents to Shape the Life you Deserve

Changes in life sometimes come at a blink of an eye.   An individual is sitting at a dead end job thinking that life will not get any better one day only to wake up and figure out what he or she is supposed to be doing with him or herself the next.  One could become spiritual for what seems like no reason at all.  This happened to me, and I could not be happier with the changes that are occurring. 

I first got into helping others because I saw a lack of understanding through everyday conversations that I would have with others.  I noticed that the average Joe tends to mix up Cerebral Palsy and Multiple Sclerosis.  One is a disease while the other is a birth defect.  A disease impacts the body over time while the other impacts the body one time during birth.  In other words, a birth defect will cause a person’s body to degenerate over the course of his or her life.  There are different degrees as to how a birth defect affects the individual, but it will not worsen over time. 

I have had a disability for thirty one years.  I know all the ins and outs of Cerebral Palsy.  The major conclusion that I came to during a crossroads in my life is that a disability is actually a gift in disguise.  When one follows his or her passion, then the obstacles he or she faces begin to disappear.  In other words, once an individual engages in what he or she is meant to do, then negative situations become the exception instead of the rule.  Each person living on this planet is a teacher of some sort.  Everyone is an expert in something whether they believe it or not. 

The only reason why a disability is seen as just that is because of the way society is structured at the moment.  The majority of society sees those with disabilities as people who are disadvantaged who need to be brought up to speed with “everyone else.”  This is not the case at all.  Once the disabled as well as the rest of society takes their power back, then no one will need to be brought up to speed.  The disability that one has will then be transformed into a gift that can be used to help him or herself as well as others.  Once the gift is used for its proper purpose then all of the challenges surrounding it will vanish.  No one will need to receive assistance from the government.  Everyone will be in charge of themselves and live with everything they need in order to survive on a daily basis. 

The main issue that hold people back from achieving their dreams and a stable living environment is fear.  When an individual focuses on fear more than his or her creative pursuits, then that is when negative things start happening on a regular basis.  When people think of someone who works as an artist, they always put the word “starving” in front of the noun.  The fact of the matter is that the opposite is true.  When one focuses on what he or she was meant to do, material goods and financial stability start to appear out of the woodwork.  The consensus believes that a salary position in a company with a 401k is the best thing since sliced bread.  In actuality, what a salary position does is lock a person into receiving a minimal amount of pay for an amount of work that is most likely worth four or five times as much. 

I chose writing as way to share my knowledge with others.  I have always been one to go into detail about absolutely everything.  I would always tell everyone to explain the whole thing whenever they would bring a topic  up.  Instead of just posting comments online, I figured that I would actually try to use my gift to help express myself more effectively as well as inspire other people.  This is what my purpose is in this lifetime.  I am supposed to take the knowledge I have gained, and use it to assist others in bringing out their best qualities.  As long as I follow this path, then I will always have what I need in order to live a happy life.

Everyone is born with a gift that they must share with the rest of the world.  This gift will tie into the life purpose of each individual on the planet.  Once people start following their own path, their gifts will become more accessible than ever before.  Everyone will then live in abundance and the lack of what is required to function on a daily basis will not be an issue any longer.   

Building a Healthier Future

The world today is extremely fast paced due to all the activities one schedules on a daily basis.  Because we live in a quantity over quality world, people tend to not take care of their health the way that they should.  This will eventually lead to the malfunction of the body.  Once the body starts to fail, then people will not be able live life to the fullest.

My health seems to get worse during the winter months.  My legs become stiffer, and I cannot walk very well.   Sometimes my lower back will hurt so bad that I will just stay in the bed the majority of the day.  I finally decided to do something about these negative conditions a few weeks ago.  I asked my primary doctor to give me a referral so I could go to physical therapy.  I figured that if I strengthened the muscles in the legs and lower back, then I might fare cold weather better in the future.

It felt odd to be in physical therapy once again.  The last time I was in any type of therapy relating to the physical body was after my last surgery in the summer of 2000.  I felt like I was putting on an old hat that I had not worn in years.  I was not sure how this was going to turn out.

The physician that I saw gave me standard exercises for my legs.  I had to move one leg at a time out to the side while on my back.  I had other exercises such as raising my legs in the air as well as toward my chest.  I also had a band tied around my legs and then had to move my legs in opposing directions to fight the resistance put on my lower extremities.

I started to feel the difference in my body after two therapy sessions.  My right hip did not crack as much.  My lower back seemed to be able to withstand some of the colder nights during early spring.  I also began to feel my own aura in my feet on a relatively regular basis.  The symptoms I experience due to having an inflamed pelvic floor did not seem as painful.  I started going to the bathroom more easily than I have in years.

If I would not have made time to go to physical therapy, then my health never would have improved at all.  Slowing one’s self down is a key component to improving one’s body and mind.    Nobody will ever accomplish anything in life by doing the bare minimum so that he or she can move on to the next thing.  Good health takes commitment and patience.  Without those two things, there will be no chance that an individual will improve his or her life.

Learning how to show Compassion

The world can sometimes be a very scary place to be.  A good part of the population is still stuck in survival mode, and this can lead to circumstances that would be very unpleasant to deal with.  On the other side of the coin, compassion is something that a lot of people seem to have forgotten about.  I also forgot about compassion as well during last night’s conference regarding getting a name or gender marker altered. 

The conference started inside a small room within the Chase Brexton healthcare facility in Baltimore City.  A person by the name of Monica stated that she does not trust any medical institution.  She thought that the medical was talking about her when she was unconscious from anesthesia.  Another individual who identified as a trans man told his story about working a job in the medical field.  He made sure that the doctors gendered people correctly.  A non-trans female lawyer also explained that she was at the conference in order to obtain information to serve her clients more efficiently.  Monica decided to start arguments with both lawyer, and the trans man.  She asked them both what they are doing here.  The lawyer explained once more that she was there to gather information to help her clients.  Monica did not like this answer.  She felt as though she was being observed and did not feel that was equal to the lawyer.  Monica also had an issue with the story the trans man gave regarding his experience in the working world.  In other words, the only thing Monica would have accepted for a legitimate answer would have been someone saying that he or she was at the conference to help takes steps to get his or her name or gender changed.  Back stories did not matter to this woman. 

I began to lose my cool on the inside as Monica berated these two individuals over and over about why there were at the conference in the first place.  I wished the host of the conference would have stood up and told Monica to stop, but she just sat there instead.  I could have voiced my opinion, but I did not want to add insult to injury.   The host probably thought the same thing. 

After the arguments were over, the conversation then turned to gender identification on medical forms that one receives in the waiting room of an office.  People were complaining about forms stating “female” and “trans female” instead of “cis female” and “trans female.  Certain people felt that this was an injustice to the transgender population.  One person thought that the different boxes on the forms forced people to indicate how they perceive their bodies.  It just amazed me that no one brought up the fact that transition is more of an internal movement than an external one.  No one talked about what they learned from transition so far.  It was always about others people’s perception of who they were.  Transition is about the journey to express one’s inner nature.  I felt like I did not belong at this conference.

After the conference was over, I went to the diner in my neighborhood to try to raise my spirit.  This helped a little bit, but it took about five more hours before I was able to get the whole incident out of my head.  I did not sleep at all during the night.

 

I thought the whole conference was about helping others with changing one’s name or gender marker.  I came to the meeting to tell my story about changing both of these things.  I hoped to inspire others with my words, but this did not happen.  I was the one who was taught something in the end.  I did not see the conference this way immediately after it was over.  The universe was teaching me how to have compassion for others who were less fortunate than I was.  If someone told me three years ago that transition was a journey from the inside out, I probably would not have paid attention to a word that this person was saying.  I too was stuck on physical and vocal changes for a long time, and I would not have been able to see the bigger picture.  I have to remember that I was once where some the people at the conference are now.  I wish I would have had this in mind before I went to the conference. 

The reason that I had no knowledge of being taught a lesson was because I absorbed the negative energy that Monica was sending out.  I let her rampage on two other people affect my mood.  This in turn lowered my vibration.  I began to think solely of my needs just as she was doing.  This is why I was not able to see what was really going on in the conference.  Monica controlled everything, and no one did anything to stop it.  This includes me as well.  If I would have stood up to her and changed the topic, then I might have been able to raise the vibration of the rest of the room.  I was somewhat of being physically assaulted, so I did not say anything.  I had an opportunity to change things for the better, but I decided to give into fear instead. 

Now that I realize that I actually do absorb the energy of others, I can then take more constructive measures to protect myself in the future.  I now know how to handle myself in an environment where low vibrations are dominant.  I also understand that I need to show more compassion to those who cannot see the good in the world.  I need to remember that I was not always as optimistic about my life when I was younger.  I was able to pick up on Monica’s vibration right after she opened her mouth.  I should have showed compassion towards her from the start.  I guess the night was not a complete waste.  I might have failed to inspire others, but I learned something about myself in the process.  

Trump's Reversal of Transgender Rights Affects Everyone

Donald Trump has been President for a little over a month, and he caused quite a stir with the transgender community.  Trump rolled back the rights protecting transgender people from being discriminated against in public.  This means that any establishment can refuse to serve someone just because he or she decided to take steps in order to feel more comfortable in his or her skin.  The real question is going to be whether or not a lot of public places actually adhere to Trumps ruling. 

Owners of businesses now have the right to kick out any transgender person that he or she wants to without any consequences whatsoever.  Businesses operate off of income that they receive from the many different customers who pay good money in order to be serviced in some way.  If owners start to target a particular demographic of people that frequents their businesses, then this decision is going to play a role in how much money is made throughout the year.  Transgender people still use money as a way to get things that they desire.  If an owner of an establishment has a high percentage of customers who are transgender, then he or she might want to think twice before acting upon Trump's ruling.  Businesses will also lose the profit that will come from allies of transgender individuals as well.  The financial losses any business incurs will be a defining factor in whether or not it will stay afloat.   

Another question that is raised due to the legal change that has taken place is how does an individual tell who is transgender and who is not.  What does transgender even look like?  People look like people.  Gender congruent individuals can be mistaken for the opposite sex as well, so one cannot judge another person off of his or her looks alone.  In other words, there is no way possible to tell who identifies as transgender without knowing an individual’s personal background, so any business that tries to discriminate against anyone is definitely going to get hurt later down the road when its profits take a dive. 

Only time will tell what will happen regarding Donald Trump’s new ruling.  I highly doubt that most places will even consider discriminating against anybody due to the reasons state above.  No one knows for certain how everything is going to turn out, but the transgender community is not going to go down without a fight. 

Dealing with Inflammation

Inflammation has been an issue that I have dealt with for the past twelve years.  This is due to the hypersensitivity of nerves located in a specific set of muscles on the body.  The burning sensation that inflammation brings can be quite hard at times.  It pulls individuals away from what they love and forces them to focus their attention on something that is rather undesirable.  I started having issues with inflammation when I developed a condition known as Pelvic Floor Disorder. 

I was first diagnosed with Pelvic Floor disorder in January of 2009.  The issues with my pelvis started four years earlier when I obtained a urinary tract infection.  It burned when I went to the bathroom.  I went to the hospital, and the doctors there gave me pills to clear everything up after they catheterized in order to extract the waste from my bladder.  I was fine for about a year and a half afterwards, and then I got infected in the same area once more.  Pills cleared the infection up, and I went on with my life.  During Christmas of 2008, I began having difficulty urinating.  There was a little bit of a burning sensation this time as well, but not as bad as when I had the other infections.  My urologist told me that I my problems with relieving waste might be more than just a simple infection.  The nerves in my pelvic floor that control the involuntary sphincters have become hypersensitive most likely due to age.  I saw another doctor for a second opinion, and he agreed that I had Pelvic Floor Disorder.  This guy told me that it was a progression of my Cerebral Palsy.  After the doctor gave me his two cents regarding my problem, I decided to stop seeing him altogether.  Cerebral Palsy does not get progressively worse through time.  It is a birth defect.  A person will remain affected by Cerebral Palsy to the same degree throughout his or her lifetime.  There are different degrees of this birth defect, but the degree does not change depending on time or age. 

My pelvic floor condition does not allow me to empty my waste properly.  Sometimes I will have to go to the bathroom twice in one hour just to relieve myself completely.  I also become constipated rather often.  I sometimes sit on the toilet for about an hour and a half trying to have a bowel movement.  My involuntary sphincters will flip out for what seems like no reason.  I have come to realize that the sphincters spaz out when my nerves become inflamed.  My fecal matter will remain at the bottom of the toilet instead of floating to the top like everyone else’s.  Cleaning out the toilet bowl becomes a nightmare because of this fact.  My condition can make it difficult to enjoy any activity in life.  I do not know when I will have the urge to go to the bathroom.  I also will have to sit in pain due to the inflammation that can arise even when I do not have to use the bathroom. 

The main thing I learned when dealing with the pelvic floor as well as inflammation in general is to keep the area clean.  One should go to the bathroom when the urge is first felt.  An individual would be wise to start eating smaller portions during every meal of the day.  This will ensure that the stomach and bowels do not become extremely irritated at a later time.  Pills have never really helped my nerves that much, so I would not suggest trying to relieve pain in this manner..  As long as one is active aware of his or her body, then inflammation of any type can be manageable without too much intervention. 

Gender Confusion: Retold

Being transgender is one of the hardest obstacles to overcome in today’s society.  The transformation that one goes through is no small feat by any means.  One puts everything at risk when he or she decides that transition is for him or her.  The individual’s inner world will have to be expressed.  This information will be judge by someone in the medical field.  The key to a successful transition is to take things one step at a time.

The feeling that I was transgender did not start until I was around fifteen years of age.  Before this, I identified as a gender congruent male.  For whatever reason, my brain decided it would be a cool idea to try on opaque hosiery sometime during puberty.  I never actually accomplished this goal until much later.  The idea remained a fantasy for quite some time.  I never actually told anyone in person about my desires until the summer of 2002.  While I was in the shower, this individual put a skirt and top on my bed as a joke.  The only thing that this person did not realize was that she was the one being fooled.  When I got out of the shower, I saw the clothes and tried them on to see if they would fit.  Once I told the individual that brought out the clothes for me to find, she let me keep them. 

Around the spring of 2003, my desires went beyond just wearing women’s clothes.  I actually wanted to be seen as a girl in everyday life.  I had no idea where this thought came from.  I did not know what to do with this new found idea.  I developed a sense of jealousy towards the girls in my school.  I wanted to be as they were, but I knew that I could not achieve this goal no matter how hard that I tried. 

During the winter of 2004, I decided that it was time to start developing my voice.  I did not practice very often.  I only practiced for about an hour every night.  I eventually gave up after three weeks of practice because I still was not one hundred percent sure that I was indeed a transsexual.

I then decided that even if I were a woman at birth, I probably would not have been that different anyway.  That is when I started identifying as genderless individual.  This only lasted for a little over a year.  It was probably just an effort to reduce to my dysphoria.  I did not realize that my gender issues would be back stronger than ever when they surfaced once again.    

During the spring of 2007, my dysphoria returned to the forefront of my mind.  I became upset about being a guy.  I then went searching for information on the Internet regarding transsexualism.  I eventually found the huge trans community that existed on Youtube.  I ended up receiving a private message from someone in regards to a comment I had left on a video.  She and I became great friends.  This individual also became my twenty four hour therapist. 

For the next four years, I kept going back and forth on whether I was truly trans or not.  This was a very dark period in my life.  I could not find any logical reason as to why I felt fine as a male for fifteen years of my life, and then suddenly feel negative about my gender for the second half of my life.  I got so depressed about not being able to figure this out that I once said that I wanted to suck all the sin out of the world and then die.  I never had a strong Christian upbringing, so it is interesting that I used the word “sin” instead of “evil.” 

During the spring of 2011 is when I finally decided that I was going to transition.  I figured out that I would never know one hundred percent if transition was right for me until I decided to go for it.  I did not have that much to lose in the first place.  I was not close to anyone in my family outside of the immediate members.  I did not have a whole lot of close friends left.  They had all moved to another state at this point in their lives.  I did not have a job at this point, so it would have been impossible to any type of employment.  The only thing holding me back was my own doubt. 

The first step I took in my transition was to develop a female voice.  I did not have any money to do anything else.  You do not need money in order to work on a voice.  Voice surgery is just expensive garbage that does not yield positive results the majority of the time.  Why pay for something that you can achieve yourself? 

The first thing I did in regards to developing a female voice was talk to my friend from Youtube.  I also downloaded a spectrogram as well as virtual voice tuner.  I learned that the female voice is between 200-230 hertz while voices are between 100-120 hertz.  Raising the pitch up to the female range was not super difficult.  Finding the correct resonance for the female voice is the challenging part.  Females have less of a bass in their voices, but the trick is not getting rid of the bass completely.  The female voice is just less of the male voice.  In order to achieve the female resonance, one needs to tighten up the base of her through and then relax enough in order to project her voice loud enough to be heard.  It is easier to show how this is done than the written word can do to explain the process.  There was a content creator on Youtube that showed the breathing exercises that she used.  I learned where the female resonance was located by breathing in through my mouth and nose at the same time.  By doing this, one will hear the breath inside her own head.  Everyone has heard her voice inside her own head before.  If one has ever been to the mountains or inside of a pool, then chances are that her ears have popped while she was in the middle of a conversation.  This can also occur after an individual yawns.  Immediately after she starts to speak, the voice will be in her head and then the ears pop.  Hearing the breath inside of one’s head is similar to those instances.  When words are spoken, the throat needs to remain someone tightened but loose enough to be projected.  When I first learned how to speak in a more feminine voice, I fell victim to the same issue that every other transsexual does when developing her voice.  I was too scared to relax my throat enough to allow my full voice to be heard.  This made things sound off.  I did not like the sound of my voice at all.  After I practiced for several months, I realized that I no longer needed to breathe through my nose in order to help tighten up throat.  I learned how to tighten my throat and just breathe in through my mouth.  Melodic intonation is the final step in achieving a female voice.  I used the Harvard Sentences in order to learn how to speak like the majority of women in today’s society.  I just downloaded a few sample files from the Internet.  The first sentence is the one I practiced the most.  This sentence read, “The birch canoe slid under the smooth planks.”  I must have recorded this sentence at least fifty times or more. 

During April of 2012, I scheduled a voice consultation with the legendary Andrea James.   I was shocked to learn that I was rather advanced in my voice progression.  I still did not like the sound of my voice, but I would have to learn to accept it as time pushed forward. 

In May of 2013, I finally obtained a job out in the work force.  I was a call center representative at my local electric utility company.  I had to go back to using my male voice for the majority of each day.  I still kept up with my voice practices at night.  Throughout the next year and a half, I noticed that my male voice had changed somehow.  While trying to speak with more melodic intonation to customers in my male voice, I realized that I was going up into the female register without even trying.  The customers never said a word about the change in pitch and resonance.  They were too busy complaining about how I sounded like a foreigner.  I was born and raised in the Baltimore area, so I have no idea why others thought I was Chinese or Jamaican.

During April of 2015, I decided to come out to my supervisor at work.  She found out from the human resources department that I would need to have my name legally changed in order to present as female.  I still had to use the men’s bathroom until my name was officially changed by a judge.  The people I would run into within the bathroom were starting to ask me if I belonged in there.  I told my supervisor as well as my human resources representative about the issue, but there was nothing anyone could do until my name change was finalized. 

The name change process is not that difficult in the state of Maryland.  Only three sheets of paperwork are required to change one’s name.  I had to fill out the petition for a name change in the most princess like handwriting possible.  I then had to fill out the paper to publish my name change in a local paper.  I then filled out part of the order for a name change that the judge would approve.  The total cost for everything came to about seventy two dollars.  The judge denied the order the first time due to my bad handwriting.  I went up to the courthouse the following week and got everything resolved.  I had someone assist me on how I could make my handwriting more legible. 

My name was legally changed as of July 31, 2015.  I was finally able to present as female at work two weeks later.  My human resources representative held mini meetings within the call center.  I did not particularly care for the presentation regarding the overview of transgenderism, but the meetings were not God awful by any stretch of the imagination.  I should have been the one to give my own presentation.  None of my co-workers showed any ill will towards me after I transitioned.  One girl hugged in the bathroom because she had an uncle that went through a gender transition as well 

Living as a transsexual has not been too horrible.  I still get misgendered from time to time, but that does not bother me as much anymore.  I know what I have been through to get where I am today, and that is all that matters.  I no longer need anyone else’s approval to be who I am.  My thoughts are what brought me to the choices that I have made over the course of my life.  Just because someone else has a different idea about how another individual should live does not make his or her perception more accurate by any means.  Everyone makes correct choices most of the time, but the consequences do not always look how he or she thinks it should.  The only poor choice that one can make is to think about negative situations that have not arisen or to choose to be so afraid of making the wrong choice that he or she does nothing at all.  I chose to do something about the discomfort that I had with my gender.  I ended up smelling like a rose in the end.  Anyone can come up on the positive side of a situation as long as he or she keeps pushing forward.  As long as a person remains active towards some end, then it will be impossible for the individual to lose.   

  

A Letter to my Father

(My father and I had a difficult relationship.  This letter might seem a bit harsh, but I had to let go of some difficult emotions.  I appreciate everyone that has supported me in my journey to become a light worker.  Have an awesome year)

Dear Father:

I hope your soul is doing well after the painful death that you endured.  I wish the best of luck in your next incarnation.  I would try to work on developing values outside materialism and career.  Everyone lives a physical existence on this planet, and we all need physical things in order to sustain ourselves.  You took that idea a bit too far during your last life here on earth.  Your identity was tied to working and making money.  You never really took time to take care of your health.  You also never took too much of an interest in what other people were doing around you.  When no one else would take interest in the things you were doing, then you got an attitude with him or her. 

Things were quite turbulent after you passed away in July.  I am going to lose the house.  I do not know where I will be living as of yet, but I am sure that I will manage something.  I put a few of the bills in my name.  I have been paying BGE, Verizon Wireless, and Verizon Fios for about five months now.  My credit information is still rather lackluster.  This is one of the main reasons that I cannot rent an apartment or room somewhere.  I should not feel too bad though because I do not have any outstanding debts in my name.  One Main Financial and your Elan credit card are paid off in full.  I do not understand why you ran up a three thousand dollar bill on the card.  Why did you have such a huge ego?  You should have asked for help with all of your issues.  The only reason why you probably tried to control everything at home all the time was because you felt like you had no power when it came to your career.

I have moved on with my life.  I have realized that I have the potential to become an occultist, a writer, and a healer.  You probably disapprove of the choices that I have made with my life.  The only thing that you fail to realize is that some people value things other than money.  I let your influence take over my own personality.  The same can be said for BGE as well.  Both of you are similar to one another.  You both valued financial gain above all else.  You both had terrible taste in nutrition.  I still do not know how I ate pizza from Pizza Hut.  I guess I should not be too hard on myself because I did not know any better at the time.  My life feels awesome without either of you in it whatsoever. 

This letter is not about trashing the way you lived.  When you actually responded to things like an ordinary person, then things did not seem half bad.  You were always an awesome person when we went out to eat to places such as The Reisterstown Family Diner, J and P Pizza, and Ledo Pizza.  We had a lot of laughs when we went out.  It is too bad that the joy had to stop once we came home.

My only other point of contention is that you always defended your negative attributes by using me as an excuse.  You always said that I should be thankful that you are around due to my inability to drive.  You cannot use being a “chauffeur” as a reason that I should have overlooked your shortcomings.  I was thankful that you took the time to help me to get the work as well as take me to doctor appointments.  You still had faults of your own that you could have worked on to better yourself.  I was never mad because you were not a perfect person.  I was angry because you never tried to improve yourself one bit. Some of your flaws were so big that they could not be ignored.  I can only guess that you suffered from some kind of mental illness. 

I wrote this letter in order to let go of all the anger that I have had for you over the years.  You are now one with the universe once again.  I am sorry that we did not have a better relationship while you were still around.  I forgive you for all the pain you have caused.  It probably was not all you fault.  Please consider this letter as a symbol of peace

Love

Laruen 

I am a Healer

The art of holistic healing can be rather confusing to a newcomer.  We have all been taught how the physical body functions during grade school education, and this makes healing sound a bit mystical.  The thing to remember about holistic healing is that it only uses things that are natural to the environment. 

I have recently have had some pain on the right side of my jaw as well my right thigh.  The pain was so bad that I almost fell over a few times.  When I was getting ready to take a shower about seven days, I felt some type of aura energy in the spot where my right leg had the most pain. This had a different feeling to it than the sensation that I feel in my hands.  It was a lot stronger, and made the pain go away.  The pain did not disappear completely, but it certainly felt a lot better when this aura sensation was present.  I had a tooth pulled back in July of last year that was close to my trigeminal nerve.  Due to bacteria always being present in the mouth at all times, this makes the extraction spot and the areas surrounding it hurt quite a bit.  The bacteria probably go straight into the gums instead of eating away at the tooth, and this irritates my jaw.  The aura energy took a good bit of the pain away, and it allowed to me to think about others things that I wanted to get done. 

I also noticed a paper cut in when I was in the shower last week.  There huge red circle in the upper right portion of my left palm.  I did not actually know about the paper cut until after I finished taking a shower.  I then decided to take a nap for three hours.  After I woke up, I looked at my hand, and I realized that the paper cut was completely gone.  There was no evidence that the paper cut had ever existed.  I have gotten small paper cuts before, and none of them have gone away completely in three hours.  One would think that the skin in the area would be flaky indicating that the body was regenerating itself, but there was no sign that any incident ever occurred.

From what I have experienced, holistic healing does exist.  My body has never experienced a powerful aura sensation in the upper right side of my jaw or right thigh before.  I have never experienced any type of aura sensation on any part of my body that needed to be healed.  I have never healed from paper cuts within hours after realizing that one has appeared.  Something outside of the physical realm had intervened to some degree.  It could be the case that all of these events occurred because my energy was called on to assist with the health issues that I was having.  The only thing left for me to do now is to try to develop this ability further.  Maybe I could actually heal others someday.  Only time will tell if this ability will grow into something more.