It's Not All Light and Love.

I think when people hear I identify myself with spirituality they assume I'm going to preach to them to be full of light and love. I understand why this is a common assumption for people. It feels like the last few years we've seen nothing but posts and books about finding happiness and being full of light in the world. Even I've written things encouraging people to find their own version of happiness and success.

I do believe in finding happiness. I also believe in finding ways to be a positive light and to fill your life with love in as many healthy ways as you can. However, I think it's unrealistic to expect people to dismiss their negative feelings. One thing that I've always tried to keep consistent with my writing is the acknowledgment that it is natural for darker elements of being human to exist in all of us. We all have our flaws in our personalities but that doesn't mean we have to always correct those flaws, sometimes they can be strengths.

Personally, I have always had to learn to control my temper. I'm not the type of person to physically get in a fight and I've never believed in physical violence as the answer to problems. My temper comes out in my voice. It wasn't uncommon for me to have to bite my tongue and swallow down the urge to create an argument when disagreements with people emerged, especially on the topic of human rights. I'm quite passionate about people having the right to live their lives in peace in whatever way they want as long as it doesn't severely hurt others. I had to learn when and where it was appropriate to place my anger.

At the time of writing this, America is yet again seeing men in power making laws about what a woman does to her body. I understand the topic is quite sensitive to people and I feel if I were to speak up about my opinion and view on abortion and abortion laws that it deserves to be its own separate piece. What I can say is that I am a believer that everyone deserves to make their own decisions about their own body. Whether you are a woman or part of the transgender community, you deserve to make choices about your body and I will never tell you otherwise. As a young woman myself, I am outraged that I continue to live in a world where someone who does not know me, does not know my health history and does not have the experience of being in my body can somehow make laws and regulations telling me what I can and cannot do with my own physical form.

I've been seething for days.

I've been furious for days and I've been pouring over my journals trying to find the right words to express myself. I'm still struggling to properly communicate everything I feel and I might have to make a separate post in the near future to purge all of that emotion. Instead, I finally came to the conclusion to post this to say that it is more than okay to be furious when basic human rights are in danger. It's okay if you're like me and you find yourself so consumed in raw anger that you don't even know how you're going to properly communicate it to the world.

You're allowed to feel angry. You're allowed to feel furious about the world. Not everything is all light and love. It never will be all light and love and to try and tamper down other emotions is to try and erase what makes our existence in life and society such a fundamental one. We're not comprised of light. We're made of inspiring and destructive qualities and they are present for a reason.

For now, I'm going to try and communicate my anger in a productive way and then find something to calm me down for the rest of my day.

Stay safe.