What is the most common phrase you speak to yourself? For me it's probably: I want to live with authenticity and passion. We can also have negative common phrases, or incantations we tell ourselves. One of mine is: I will never be successful. I am not good at being truly affectionate and vulnerable. The problem, or the benefit, with incantations is that we actually hypnotize ourselves. Positive or negative incantations have real life implications. It changes how we act, how we view ourselves, how we view other people, etc. The biggest impact you can have on your life is to change your incantations to encouraging, positive words and phrases. It's been proven that people are more likely to succeed in life if their self-talk is encouraging. If you are suffering from self-confidence issues remind yourself of how strong you are. Make a list of the things you've done in your life that required great inner strength. If you are suffering from feeling inferior in relationships with others remind yourself of the ways you care about others. Make a list of the things you have given to friendships in the past and present. Add in things that you desire to give in relationships and that you know have within but haven't given out yet. If you are suffering from feeling critical and angry remind yourself of how compassionate and caring you really are. Sometimes the hyper-critical people are the most compassionate of all, they just don't know how to let go and be themselves. Write your true compassionate and caring desires down. Get specific with it as it applies to your life and relationships. This one is really true for me because I have suffered from a very critical world view and yet I feel like at my core I am exceptionally compassionate. We're taking the things we want to change, or the things we think we're bad and we're looking at the positives. If we think we can't do anything right then we're going to start speaking that incantation to ourself and then it will come true in our life. Instead we need to focus on our positive qualities, the things we have accomplished, the people we've given our love to and so on. This reframes how we view ourselves. If we want to help and contribute to others then we need to see the positives in ourselves. This is what creates good interpersonal relationships. We all want other people to feel good about themselves but then we don't practice the same kindness for ourselves? What kind of double standard is that? I'll go ahead and practice what I am preaching. Here is my list. These are my CORE STRENGTHS. Get a piece of paper out and do this now! We're so uncomfortable with saying what we're good at. I think we can sometimes see it as arrogant. This is unfortunate because self-confidence in a healthy way is so beneficial to us and everyone we love. Lift yourself up. I am compassionate I am a deep thinker I am always trying to improve and grow I try new things I have a strong spirit I desire to be encouraging and giving in my friendships I am open to others point of view I care about people I love giving people gifts I am a great poet who can communicate my deep thoughts with written words I am intuitive and can sense people's feelings and emotions You can keep writing as long as you think of things. I would re-read this or add to it at the beginning of every new day. Speak these things out loud, write them on a poster, put it where you can see it. Whatever works for you! Live Epic, Bailey
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The Sadness Facade is a tricky one. I have used it for a lot of my life. Weirdly, my sadness came from my desire to connect with others. As you get older you realize how many people have been abused or gone through trauma as a child. As a female, you are surrounded by eating disorders, lack of self esteem and so on. I didn’t have to endure these things. Weirdly, this made me feel a lack of connection with others. One of the biggest human needs is for love and connection. It’s all I wanted.
So I became sad. I found reasons, I marinated in them and manipulated myself to feel sad. Then I used that sadness to connect with other people. This started in my teens. I was a poet and a “closet emotional” and my sadness facade came about because of negative reinforcement. I noticed that if I was happy, confident, liked myself, etc. that people would become angry or put off by me. Because my ultimate goal was for love, connection and caring for others I felt that my happiness and contentment would make people feel worse about themselves so in order to protect them from my happiness I became sad. Sometimes sadness is real in me. I have gone through hard things. This is not the sadness I am speaking of. Situational sadness and grieving are necessary. It’s when sadness becomes a lifestyle that holds us back from true joy and love for ourselves that it is a problem. It’s when we actually go to the point of changing our physiology to become sad when we’re either bored or desire to connect with others. The equation goes: I get sad=I get attention from others I get sad=People feel sorry for me and connect with me I get sad=I feel a deep sense of meaning I get sad=I connect with myself in a deep way I get sad=Bad things are happening everywhere and so I have to be sad I get sad=People will see me as heartless if I don’t Sometimes we aren’t actually sad, we just feel like we have to be for some reason and so we trick ourselves into it. We are “doing” sad. We hold ourselves in that place for so many reasons. A few of mine were: -Connecting with myself -Connecting with others -Fear of succeeding -Fear of making other people feel bad about themselves -Feeling like I would be judged if I didn’t mourn the bad things happening in the world -Getting reinforced when others would share their sadness with me My power does not last long when I’m sad. I may have written a few great poems that way (which was another reason I liked being sad) but ultimately it keeps me from growing. Sadness as a lifestyle is not helpful. Our culture tells us to be happy, love yourself, live without fear...but then if you actually do it people say, “You can’t be THAT happy.” “You’re conceited/arrogant.” The feedback comes from other people's insecurities. All my life I’ve been trying to protect those people by not showing up fully in my life. I’ve been trying to protect people with insecurities by staying in sadness and discontent. I learned these things a few years ago and constantly have to work on understanding my state of being. If we understand how we create our sadness facade then we can change. It’s time to get sad. Answer these questions and outline how to get sad: What do I do with my body when I get sad? What is my posture? Where do I go? What is my internal dialogue? What am I saying to myself in this moment? What could snap you out of this feeling? If your friend was feeling this way what would you say to them? Understanding what we do with our body and mind when we “get sad” is key to changing the pattern. You start to realize that you actually willingly change your physiology to create and environment for sadness. But we can only be sad for so long...what happens when we get tired of feeling sad? When I get tired of being sad for so long where do I go from there? Do you snap out of sadness with anger? How does this anger make you feel? Does it make you feel in control again? How does your posture and body change when you go from sadness to anger? In Psychology this is coined as “The Crazy 8”. Not only do humans have the need for love and connection, they also need variety and certainty. Going back and forth from sadness to anger creates this variety. Getting angry makes us feel in control again after being sad for too long. Unfortunately this pattern keeps us stagnant. We feel like we’re doing something by getting angry but soon we’ll slump back into sadness and lose that momentum. It keeps us stuck. In order to get out of this pattern let’s do a little exercise. Think of a time you felt accepted and understood by someone. Think of a time you felt victorious. Remember a time you felt excited about something. How did the moments leading up to this feel? Think of a time you felt peace. Where were you? What made you feel that way? In what moments have you felt the most free? Who are the people you love? How do you show them your love for them? How do they show you love? Think about those moments with them. These are SPARKS. The places, emotions, relationships and activities where we lose our holdbacks. Where we feel that warmth in our gut and that excitement. Staying in sadness, anger, anxiety, or whatever emotion you struggle with, will ultimately hold you back from what you’re meant to do. We are manipulating ourselves into those emotions so when we change our posture, our thoughts, our self-talk, we can snap out of them and accomplish what we are meant for. We can find our strengths if we stop holding ourselves back. The exercise above is meant to get you excited. It’s meant to transport you into the moments and memories in your life where you felt the most alive. Meditate on those memories, draw them into yourself and transport them into the future. We’ve all overcome things, experience adventure, recklessness, excitement, happiness, love, acceptance and so on. We can cultivate THESE emotions instead of emotions like sadness. The first step is realizing that we hold ourselves in those emotions because we are meeting our needs. We have to learn to meet our needs for love, connection, significance, certainty, variety and contribution in other/healthy ways. Are you getting off on sadness or some other detrimental emotion? Why? What if I approached life like a video game? Something like World of Warcraft comes to mind, though I know next to nothing about it. I am my character. Every problem or difficulty I encounter is a challenge that, should I prevail, allows me to advance to the next level. Through training, learning, and practice, I can level up my character. Thus I can add weapons to my arsenal and skills to my repertoire.
Like any well-designed game, life is inherently challenging. Often our model of the world is that life should be easy, or at least difficult only when we want it to be; when we are feeling bored. What if a person’s favorite game was easy? It probably wouldn’t be much fun. I don’t play Scrabble with Bailey because I win every time. I crave the challenge. When I face a problem in life, I can default to getting angry or depressed. Or, I can stare down the problem like a high level player in the game of life. I can take a stance of enthusiastic curiosity. I can look for the unique quality of this individual problem; the opportunity it affords to push beyond my present understanding of my limits and what is possible. I can allow the desire to know what’s on the other side, on the next level, be my motivation as I craft an elegant, creative solution. Once on the other side, there are a couple things I can know for sure: the problems of my past have brought me here to this level, and another challenge is on its way. I wonder what this one will be like? -Johnny I'm proud to officially announce my next certification journey has begun! It's common for people to ask me if I went/go to college. I tried this avenue for about a year and a half but only thrived in three classes: Psychology, Public Speaking and Writing. This should have been enough information to lead me where I needed to go. Unfortunately it's difficult to see when you're freshly out of high school and carrying the weight of pursuing a career for security instead of passion. Not only that, but I've always had a hard time in school. So instead I decided to "create my own major" Well, I didn't actually decide this at one moment in time…it just sort of happened. From the age of 21-27 I've completed (or am completing) these certifications: Floral Design Institute Beginner + Advanced Herbalism Nutritional Therapy Practitioner Strategic Intervention Coach The last three certifications will go beautifully together. Although Floral Design seems unrelated it has actually been the job I needed to accomplish the other three. Normally I'd have to work at least 4 days a week to make the money I do as a floral designer in the summer months and other weekends throughout the year. Because I was given the gift of time I decided to use it to pursue the "job" I actually wanted. I created this job. It's me, it's my desires. You could call it a Wellness Coach…I haven't decided on the best term. It comes out of my deep desire to THRIVE. My life question has been, "what makes some people thrive or experience happiness and what makes others get stuck and feel depressed?" I noticed there was no relation to life circumstances and how someone reacted to them. Some people have a very hard life yet they thrive. Some people have a relatively easy life and they don't. And vice versa. "Pain is a damn good thing if you use it." -Tony Robbins I understood that happiness is not one thing. It's a lifestyle. Health is not one thing. It's a lifestyle. I wanted to thrive in mind and body and see other people do the same. This final certification (probably not the last!) is honestly the one I am most excited about. Psychology, emotions and the way we use them is the subject I am most obsessed with, always have been. I am so thankful to have the knowledge of food and herbs as they are equally important in this equation. So here is where you come in.
Over the next few months I will need volunteers to practice my skills in this next certification. So if you are someone who has felt bogged down, stuck, depressed, anxious and angry in life this is for you. Or if you have a problem in life you are trying to solve, this is for you. Or if you want to discover your passion and learn how to pursue it, this is for you. This will basically be a few months of FREE life coaching/nutritional therapy/herbs. At the end of my certification I will be hosting an overnight workshop for a discounted price so let me know who is interested in being a part of that as well! Send me an email if you're interested: bailey.p.kelly@gmail.com People commonly ask how Johnny and I take on so many things. The answer to that question is highly involved but could be boiled down into two words: Passion and Obsession.
“Great…” you may be saying, “but how do you cultivate that?” A lot of people mention their lack of time, energy or motivation. Some people always put it off for the future, which we’ve been guilty of ourselves, saying, “when I get “there” I will start pouring into what I love.” Some people just have no idea what they want to pursue...there is this huge looming idea that we have to know what our life vision is right now! And then we need to pursue it with everything we have, make a difference and change the entire world! There is a lot of unnecessary pressure. Passion comes when we pursue our obsessions. Passion comes when we fuel our bodies and minds with good food. Passion comes when we create rituals and take time for self-care. Passion comes when we stop looking at it as the end all be all. Passion comes when we do the thing that makes time stand still for us. Passion comes when we explore, adventure, try new things, fail over and over. There are steps to feeling fulfilled in life. These are things that I have tried myself. FIRST. If we aren’t eating well we won’t be fueling our bodies to wake up and live to our fullest potential. Not only that, but certain foods affect how our mind works and if we aren’t digesting well then we won’t be receiving the building blocks we need to have a clear mind. How are we to follow our passions and live life if we always feel bogged down in our body? A few quick nutrition tips: -Take Bitters before every meal to stimulate digestion. That way your brain and body will receive the vitamins, minerals and other materials it needs to thrive. -Consume healthy fats. Fats make up the barrier of every single cell in our body, this affects the transport of nutrients into the cells which affects EVERYTHING. Fat also satiates us and gives us long burning energy for those days that we are kicking ass! Some ideas: coconut oil, pastured butter, raw olive oil, avocado, wild caught sardines, raw milk products, pastured animal products. -Consume high quality protein. Proteins are broken down by optimal digestion into Amino Acids which are the building blocks of our Neurotransmitters, the things in our brain that create our feel-good emotions. Without protein we can become deficient in these and slip into depression, anger and lack of motivation. Consume PROTEIN for PASSION! -Consume a variety of vegetables/fruit. The colors and types of vegetables/fruit have different benefits. We’ve become a society that has a lack of variety in our food. Eat seasonally, go to the farmer's market, try new things. SECOND. If you don’t know what you want to pursue but you don’t go out and try things then how will you discover it? A common issue is that people don’t even know where to start. If that is you then answer these questions:
Where do these lists all align? Once you’ve got an idea or direction:
THIRD. Take the lists and writing you did above and start researching or trying things out. Most people don’t choose their passion the moment they graduate highschool and go full throttle. The reason Johnny and I look like we’re doing so many things is because we are trying stuff out. We’re seeing what works, what doesn’t, what makes us feel alive, we’re researching, experimenting and ultimately FAILING a lot. You have to take calculated risks and you have to fail. I don’t like failing...but I see the purpose of it now. If you truly find your passion then you’ll become a force to be reckoned with! Passion=Obsession No one could stop you once you find it and all you want to do is learn more, try things out, fail and succeed. My hope is that more people take the risks needed to find their passion. And once you find yours, or if you have the resources, help others find theirs. I have an obsession. I always have.
My obsession has been to answer a question. “What makes us thrive?” I have followed this obsession through the years, down roads in need of clearing. I found it when my memories began; in my climbing tree where I spoke to God. Where I asked deep questions that swirl inside every single six year old’s mind. Children know more than we think. And from that moment on, I pursued the answer, through faith, through adventure, through writing, asking, seeking, failing, depression, elation, facing fears, getting married, traveling, friendships...LIFE. This was my schooling. My obsession is to live free. To find the tools that transcend bad days. To understand how pain can be used. How happiness can be created and cultivated. How to not get swallowed up by fear, depression and anxiety. How to take risks instead of staying safe. How to fuel the body chemically and emotionally with food. To create rituals that invigorate on the daily. To make changes. To admit fault. To find another door unopened. Another key that unlocks another way. To meet the common human needs we all share. To meet them in positive ways. To dissect emotions, cues and actions. To see behind things and through things. To heal. To thrive. To kick ass. I am and always have been: A Self Development Coach. Everything I’ve pursued points to this. Poetic Healing Nutritional Therapy Herbalism Self-Care And now I dive deeply into Self Development training. I will forever be learning, growing and changing. My hope is to help others live life with freedom. Cause that’s what we all want, right? We all want: Certainty Variety Significance Connection & Love Growth To Contribute Beyond Ourselves To obtain these needs we use positive or negative things. We either take care of ourselves and others or we hurt ourselves and others. Surprisingly, these needs can be met either way. How do you want your needs to be met? Do you want to live your life at full capacity, taking risks that move you forward? Or do you want to replace this epic life with addiction, anxiety, depression and anger? Over the next few months I will be adding to my skill set more direct personal development skills in order to lead people through the muck of life and discover how to thrive. I’ll be looking for some pro bono clients to work with as I build this business combining Nutritional Therapy, Herbalism and Self Development. If you are someone who suffers with low motivation in life and find yourself in disappointing patterns whether physical or mental, please get in contact with me for the possibility of working together! I’ve always looked to the person next to me to see how I should respond. This typically arises in situations that are uncomfortable, cheesy and emotional. We all grow up with some feedback loop, usually tied to our parents and how we obtain their love. For me, I would get negative feedback if I tried to be emotional or vulnerable. It’s like I’ve been wrestling myself all these years as a closet emotional. Time and time again I’ve brought my true self out of the dark and been pushed back in. This wasn’t just in my upbringing. When we step out into the world we have to remember that everyone is walking around with their guard up. I know that criticalness is a coping mechanism, one that gives us the delusion that we’re safe. It’s a false sense of security because ultimately it destroys us. It keeps us an arm length away and never allows us to really be “known”.
I look to my left; I look to my right to see how people are responding. I’ve never responded to something without fear. I’ve never responded to something without holding back a little. Whenever I have allowed myself to try, I’ve been pushed back under. Johnny and I began our marriage encouraging each other’s criticalness. We used the guise of “social justice” to accomplish this. Our desires have always been incredibly pure; we want to bring healing and redemption into our community. I’ve always felt this draw. From a very young age I desired to live a life that carried grace and love. Unfortunately, I was given a lot of negative feedback when I tried to be raw and real. At age 11 I found that a piece of paper was the most forgiving thing I had ever known. A piece of paper would take everything I had to say and accept it, no strings attached. This is how I became a writer. Years down the road I would read my poetry to someone while they stood in shock. I realized that my writing exposed so much more about me than I let on in person. People would say, “where did this come from?” and I would say, “It’s been here all along…this is me.” Someone who always encouraged my creativity and emotional nature was my grandma. She was a safe person to express myself around because she, herself, was free. When she passed away un-expectantly I knew the only way I was going to process her death was through writing. I wrote her a poem that communicated everything I wanted to tell her and everything that she encouraged within me through our relationship. Normally standing up in front of a lot of people and being emotional is hard for me…not with poetry. Poetry is my safe place; it’s the thing that translates my thoughts into communicable words. It gives me a buffer. I stood up at my grandma’s memorial and shared my heart openly with a room full of people. My brothers did the same. It was a moment where we all allowed one another to be vulnerable. But the most beautiful moment of the day was when the most critical person in my life was given a glimpse into who we were as people and responded, not critically, but emotionally, communicating that he was proud. I watch people build up callouses over years and years so that finally when it’s time to be vulnerable they can’t bear it. This is when those detrimental coping mechanisms come out. Sooner or later others see us as our false self. We start to expect that person to be critical, or whatever it is, and no longer give them room to change and grow. This is a terrible and unfortunate cycle that I’ve felt stuck in myself. It’s hard for people to change and it can be an incredibly vulnerable time. We get so used to someone being a certain way that it’s almost just as uncomfortable for us to see them trying to change. Tony Robbins has said, “We’re meant to grow so we have something to give.” Being steeped in critical feedback for so long has created a desire in me to push through fears and give others permission to be who they are with no judgments. It’s so easy for so many of us to make fun of people we don’t understand. How many times have you pointed out someone on the street or pulled up someone’s social media page with a friend so that you can make fun of it? We train ourselves to be judgmental and leave no room to learn from and grow with people that are different from us. We need to give people room and freedom. We’ve all been told that people who are mean are usually people who don’t like themselves. Being “mean” is just putting up walls of protection. We’ve learned through feedback loops that being critical, mean or judgmental can protect us in the moment. Overall, it ruins our chance at relationships and growth. We have to play the long game and start practicing acceptance in small day-to-day situations. We all want to feel free. A lot of us are drawn to nature for this very reason. Nature doesn’t judge us. When we hike to the top of a mountain and look out at the expanse we feel as if we can just be. When we’re around others and cultural expectations we feel stifled. There is a certain amount of catering to others in conversations and actions, we do need to learn to be people who don’t “over share” or expect everyone to “get it”. This would be where I was when Johnny and I were first married. Our perceived “vulnerability” was just us thinking we had figured it out and that we knew better than other people. My critical nature was still there; I just didn’t recognize it because I was pursuing “goodness” overall. I don’t regret how I’ve acted in the past. These things had to happen for me to understand how my coping mechanisms were isolating me from others. I tried to act like I knew best, like I was more free and open, that I was living the most selfless life…but these things were all walls. I wasn’t truly being vulnerable. I was working off of perceived vulnerability. I was able to create a façade without opening myself up to too much criticism. If I did good things then people couldn’t judge me, is what I thought. That way I could look as if I was being vulnerable when in reality I was living in fear. I’ve overcome these fears by practicing vulnerability when it was uncomfortable for me, by sharing my weaknesses, by coming to the realization that I am not the only one pursuing these things and that I am not “all knowing”. I’ve always been the person to “hold it all together” on the outside when in reality I am more emotional than people know. As I mentioned, when I expressed these things growing up the response to them was negative…and so I learned to hide them. When I married Johnny I knew that he was critical and somewhat judgmental but I also saw in him this desire to grow and change, which is ultimately what led me to marrying him. We both had the same story. We wanted to learn how to be free from our critical patterns. It’s been seven years of growing with him and we are finally experiencing HUGE breakthroughs. I have never seen Johnny so healthy and light. I have never seen us this way together. Even last night as we were watching an emotional documentary I looked over to him to see if I had permission to respond to the documentary in the way I felt. This led us into that conversation. He told me that he had gotten teary as he watched it and I not only felt permission to be emotional myself but I saw him giving himself permission. Together we allowed each other space to respond how we wanted to. Johnny and I both grew up in the church. I am so thankful for the beautiful qualities this upbringing instilled in us but also aware of the unintentional stifling it brought. Because we were already prone to being critical and “all knowing” as individuals, the church exacerbated some of those qualities. For those of you who know the stories of Jesus, you’ll recall that he did not approve of the Pharisees, AKA the uber religious men, who were judgmental and claimed to be “all knowing”. Do you see where I’m going here? Once I realized that Jesus came to bring freedom and the permission to experience God directly without having to jump through hoops it changed the way I thought about “religion”. It also changed the way I saw the world and myself. We shame people into changing because we were shamed into changing as children. Putting shame on people and thinking we know best gives us this sense of control. And it does work sometimes. People will changed when shamed or criticized enough. We continue that loop. I am realizing that this is my calling. TO GIVE OTHERS PERMISSION. Every time I find myself really drawn to someone I notice a common thread; they are someone who gives others permission. They create a safe space around them for every single person they come in contact with. This is who I strive to be but I need help. I need grace and understand from others when I mess up and don’t achieve that goal. Failure is okay and even beneficial as long as we’re striving and pushing past our fears. GIVE PEOPLE PERMISSION. LIVE WITH LESS FEAR. BE AUTHENTIC. It's normal. It really is.
Stress. Depression. Panic. Unease. It gets worse with that slow, mellow, drowning on the daily. It gets worse when we aren't in control. When we have no sanctuary. Nothing to look forward to. It's when we're misunderstood. It's when we're exhausted but can't sleep. It's when our mind doesn't turn off. At night. I lie awake. Trying to come to terms. Trying to control what happens next by thinking about it endlessly. Sometimes my heart beat won't slow. Sometimes my mind won't just go To sleep. They should put me in AA. My hereditary marks me with Allergies and Anxiety. Allergies I've fought with healing foods and cleansing. Anxiety rears it's head when I'm fending off the daily demons. When I have no control. Nothing to look forward to. And nothing to hold. Our culture has founded this feeling. By aggressively speaking: "SUCCEED SUCCEED SUCCEED" "DO IT ALL. DO IT ALL. DO IT ALL." Wendell Berry comes in beautifully And says, "When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free." We need to gather up a tool box And fend off the thoughts When they become all-consuming When they steal our joy And our sleep We need to plan adventures Things to look forward to We need to meditate Take baths Read books Write poems Take herbs to support us Eat food to stabilize us Go into the wilderness Get away from everyone Love ourselves Let others love us Anxiety is hard to combat. Sometimes our circumstances are unavoidable but with a tool box in place we can support our bodies through it. {I've created two herbal supports for Anxiety and have a third for Depression on the way. The mind is what fascinates me the most and I plan on specializing in Nutritional Therapy, Herbalism and Poetry Therapy for those who suffer from the debilitating aspects of Anxiety. You're not alone…not even close.} We have big dreams and small means. We dream, we scheme, we tackle everything with more determination than funding. We throw our hands up in surrender EVERY OTHER DAY. We feel hope and hopelessness simultaneously and the weight of modern culture excessively. We continue to learn, grow and inhabit our lives in whatever way we need to in a moment. Sometimes that means sorting through boxes in the basement, reminding us of how little we really need and wondering how it all accumulated in the first place. Sometimes living in the moment means crying, talking to our therapists and allowing ourselves to be upset. Sometimes it means re-focusing our vision, changing our steps and practicing a whole lot of patience.
There are a lot of people who think we already live on the property. A few times a week someone asks me when we're moving. Most recently people have been asking me if our tiny house is on the property. I LOVE that people are interested in what we are doing, but it is a little painful knowing it could be another year or more before that's a reality. We work our asses off and save ferociously but our income does not allow us to move very quickly. For those of you who know our history, we've put a lot of time into building/remodeling at the cost of moving forward into "careers" that make us come alive. This mostly affects Johnny since I don't have many building skills. Besides our financial status we also want to go slow in this process so that Johnny has time to work on the things he cares about. We've been re-building our tiny house in the back yard in order to have a space to ourselves. Our first house was built as a bedroom because we lived with one of my best friends and we didn't mind sharing the main house with her. Things have changed and once again Johnny is building instead of pursuing his passions. That said, as much as we want to move I don't want him to be overwhelmed with yet another building project or obligation. I want him to be free. He has such a beautiful mind and I want to see what he can do! This whole process has felt like layers and layers of planning on a shoestring budget. (check out our blog series: Turning 20 Dollars into 20 Acres) We have a lot of ground to cover before moving. Did you know that drilling a well can cost up to $30,000 or more? Did you know that running electricity is a couple thousand as well as graveling a driveway? Did you know that building a house is a lot of money AND work? Yeah, you know that. So this is why we don't live out there yet. Trust me, we wish we did. So that's where we are at. When we move out there you will know! For now we're trying to enjoy the small moments and keep ourselves sane as we live in the chaos and unknown. Sometimes it feels like my house is all I talk about. It’s not true, but it feels that way. It’s really hard to describe to people what has happened here over the last seven years. I’ve realized lately that one of my deepest desires is to be understood and sympathized with. Don’t we all want that to a certain extent? No one likes to be misunderstood or treated differently than they actually feel. In the age of social media and technology-relationships it can be hard to feel truly connected because only part of our life is being displayed. I used to hide my emotions. I used to act like everything was just fine all the time. I was a “closet emotional”. I realized it when I tried to open up to people as a teenager. It seemed what I was thinking in my head was way more intense than they were ready for. I was shut down a few times but thankfully I didn’t let that stop me from opening up. Some people just aren’t safe to open up with. Sometimes we don’t think they will understand, and like I said, I desire to be understood as much as it’s possible. So why do I continue talking about my living situation? Simply put, it has been my “home” reality for the last 7 years, and what is more important than where you go to relax and escape the world? But I wanted to do something different this time. I wanted to bring to mind the good memories and crazy things we’ve done there in order to not feel completely jaded. Johnny and I have come to some really hard realizations about our life in the last month and my anxiety is very real. Lately I’ve been feeling put off by people telling us who we are. When people only know you to a certain extent they take whatever details they do know and then peg you as that. It’s frustrating. People change, we change every single year, every single month, every single day. Never assume you know where someone is at, approach life with curiosity instead of absolutes. Some of the things we’ve heard lately: -You guys like living dirty (not true) -You guys like living without basic amenities (not true) -You don't have refined taste (not true) -You're hippies (huh?) -I can’t believe you wanted to start a commune (not true) A lot of people don’t know this but I am very fancy in the way I live, at least I’ve wanted to be. I love luxuries. Not in the typical sense but in the form of rituals. I love a good bath but I’ve never lived in a home with one. I love lighting candles at night. I love a clean, organized home with décor, cozy couches and warmth. I will spend obscene amounts of money on quality local food so I can prepare beautiful meals for my friends and husband. I love hosting people and if I could I would make them a full bed with a little treat on their pillow. I spend a lot of my mornings reading, drinking coffee, doing yoga and relaxing. This is how I like my home life to look. When Johnny and I got married and moved into a house that was fully ripped apart and non-functioning it sent me into a year of panic attacks and anxiety. Everything I mentioned above was non-existent. When I was a teenager I started down the road of self-care, writing poetry and pursuing whatever I felt was noble in the world. Moving into this house made me feel like I had to put all my desires on hold. Besides that I was also learning to be married. It was a really rough year that I never really talked about openly. What about the good stuff? Well, take all those desires I mentioned above and try to translate them into this situation. Here is that story. There was/is a group called Jesus Radicals. This is a group of people who combine Christianity with Anarchy. There was going to be a get together in Portland for this group and Johnny signed our house up on the list of places people could stay. Well, apparently there weren’t that many houses on the list because this is what ensued: We had about 20 people staying in our small space, which meant some of them were in hammocks out front and in tents out back. The next morning I tip toed over bodies to our make-shift kitchen and made the largest pot of oatmeal. I gathered up random cups and bowls in order to feed everyone. They were all so thankful. This was the beginning of our “hospitality house”. I felt like the space that I hated so much finally had a purpose. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make people nice beds and put little treats on their pillows, instead I could give them a couch, blankets, conversation, oatmeal and large French presses of coffee in the morning. Over the next 3 years we had a revolving door. Meanwhile we were still re-modeling the house and living without a real kitchen. Our roommate Zach had met a lot of “crusty punks” while traveling and began inviting them to visit. These were the only people who appreciated our space and hospitality. It was all we could give and I was so happy to give it. It filled a hole in me for a while. We met people from all over the country and even some international friends. People would bring their dogs, their instruments, their buses they lived in and their stories. We’d sit on the porch and talk for hours. We’d also work on projects and talk about all the epic things we could do. One of the projects ended up being our cooking stove, which everyone was really intrigued by. Our electric burners kept breaking and Johnny had heard of this stove design that only used a bundle of twigs to cook a whole meal. Life was never boring, I’ll tell you that. Our porch became our kitchen/living room/guest room. We’d cook on one side and people would sleep and hang out on the other side if we didn’t have room available. This is what it looked like: We didn’t want to live this way. It just came to us. We were handed lemons and decided to make lemonade. Johnny and I are both people who enjoy really feeling ALIVE. Because we didn’t have an ideal space or a comforting space we decided that sharing it was a way to give it life and meaning. Ultimately we became dirtier people but we also became resourceful, hard working, strong, well-rounded, understanding people. We connected with a group of people who lived a completely different life than us; I think that is always a good thing. It also caused Johnny and I to really learn to communicate well. There were always people around. At some points we had people living in our stairwell right next to our bedroom. I wouldn’t say it was the best idea, but it’s what we did. Johnny and I didn’t get a lot of privacy. Our most intimate times were spent at coffee shops talking about our dreams and working through the stress of the house together. It was a weird life but we were always trying to make the best of it. At times we had 5 people living in our 2 bedroom, one bathroom, no kitchen house. One time our roommates built their own bunk beds so three of them could fit in one room: Some of our traveling friends were regulars at our house. One day while sitting on the porch swing our friend was telling us how thankful she was for the house. She said it was incomparable to any other place she had stayed. She felt warm, welcomed and safe, like she could truly relax. This is the opposite of how the space felt to me but the fact that such a chaotic space could create that for someone was a huge success in our minds. It gave us the strength to continue what we had started. Another night we headed out to the main street to busk with our incredible musician friends. We brought the baby goats and set up on the corner near Salt and Straw Ice Cream where a huge line would form. That night we made $40 and spend it on celebratory food and drink with our friends. Things weren’t always good. People overstayed their welcome, the house was always a mess, most of my things were still in storage, I didn’t feel like I had any space for myself and Johnny was constantly stressed by the re-model. These are the truths, but it doesn’t mean I’m not thankful for all the weird/incredible things that happened here. I’ve learned so much about myself and what I can handle. I’ve learned to set healthy boundaries and stand up for myself. I am grateful for every little ounce of luxury. I’ve also made friends all across the country and world. I’ve shared my space open arms and made lemonade. For a short while the house looked pretty good, this didn’t last long but I’m glad I have it documented. I can’t wait till I have a space of my own where I can create beauty, organization, cleanliness, light, love, comfort and hospitality. It’s been a long time coming. And while I still struggle with anxiety and panic over our situation I am trying to remember all these good moments when the house was in chaos and we created epic memories regardless. It reminds me to find hope wherever it can be found; to create a home within myself when it is not physically available. To all our friends and 20+ roommates whom we've shared the space with: thank you! You helped us create something out of nothing. You shared your lives with us and your stories. You are awesome! Once we have a guest house on the property I want to see you all out there! Our Roommates and Regular Houseguests: Anna, Bethany, Olivia, Jenny, Zach, Paul, Nate, Brittany, Adam, Hodges, Laura, Nolan, Eve, Carmen, Ben, Blake, Emily, Cory, Rochelle, Mareike, Ashley, Kevin, Kaytee, Christopher, Adam, Neil, Tim, etc. |
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Bailey Patrice & Jonathan DavidCategories
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Date
December 2017
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