Brainstorms Award nomination

I would first love to sincerely thank Tangie T. Woods at Mrs. T’s Corner https://www.tangietwoods for nominating me for the Brainstorms Award! It’s a true honor to interact with so many talented writers and artists on WordPress. I will do the best I can to answer the questions asked of me and then nominate five other awesome bloggers that I follow with five of my own questions. Here it goes…..

Question 1: When did you start blogging?

I have written about this in my early posts and I would like to share my story again now. I’m reminded of a quote by Brene Brown, “Owning your story is the bravest thing you will ever do.” I have kept journals, written poems, short stories and essays my entire life for pleasure and as a way to process my own deeply felt emotions. Writing is how I make sense of the world around me as a highly sensitive person and empath with extra sensory perception. I think in metaphors and analogies. I recently had a dear friend of mine who is a professional astrologer give me my natal chart reading and wasn’t the least bit surprised that writing came up so often. It’s been a dream of mine since I was a child. I told my parents that someday I would write screenplays and who knows, perhaps I will but for now I enjoy authoring this blog and writing my poetry books (the links to which are below and available on Amazon).

In August of 2018 I came across a new movement on social media started by Ms. Jameela Jamil called @i_weigh which is a statement to say we are more than just the number on the scale, our outwards appearance, beliefs, race, sexual orientation etc. I started following her and the movement on Instagram and started liking other people’s posts of their selfies with adjectives and short phrases of who they really are like sister, trauma survivor, home chef, good listener….you get the point. I felt so inspired that I posted my own no make-up selfie with my own words. The response I received was so overwhelmingly positive, it really blew me away! I made fast friends with a soulful woman who lived in Australia and we immediately bonded over how many things we had in common including Complex PTSD, going tlbeing divorced, being empaths, political leaning views, music and writing. She asked me if I had a blog since so many of my messages to her read as lyrics to her. I told her that I enjoyed writing poems but I didn’t share any of it publicly nor did I have any clue how to! She really helped me birth not only this blog but the formatting of my poems. She gave me the confidence I needed to start really producing my writing in a whole new way. I found an app called Mirakee, I highly recommend it to my fellow Android users (it’s not currently in the iTunes store) for creating poetry. In October of 2018 I launched “Emotional Musings” here on WordPress. Here is the picture that launched it all.

Question 2: Why did you start blogging?

I have a motto that I live by and that is “Triumphing over Trauma”. For the past ten years, I have been on a journey, to heal my soul and uncover who I really am. I like to say I have lived a few different lives in my 42 years on this planet. Most of them were under an umbrella of depression, anxiety, intense fear and trauma. The deepest wound is the childhood sexual abuse I finally spoke out loud just one year ago. I have always felt different and not knowing what an empath was, believing I was crazy because I could feel other people’s feelings and know their thoughts without being told scared me and also separated me from my family and friends until I was 35 years old. Once I discovered there are other people who communicate with spirits, are highly intuitive and possess other metaphysical gifts, it changed my life! In the last year I have experienced two big shifts in the form of spiritual awakenings that have not only brought me closer to God but have allowed me to accept myself, embrace selflove, trust and believe in myself. Yes my dear readers, those were qualities I never had before.

When I first really started to heal from my life’s struggles ten years ago, I went the route of our mental health system. After I attempted to take my own life 9 years ago and proceeded to go in and out of a psychiatric hospital for an entire year (I showed up there once a month) I fell down a rabbit hole of misdiagnoses and a slew of psychotropic medications. I was on them prior to my suicide attempt and in total for fifteen years. I attended every support group available, outpatient program including CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy), DBT (dialectical behavioral therapy), EMDR (eye movement desensitization reprocessing) and intensive psychotherapy up to three times a week. I have been in some sort of therapy since I was seven years old. I have experienced both catatonic depression and dissociative episodes since I was very young.

I wear all of these experiences as a badge of honor, not the shame that used to paralyze me. I mainly write this blog to share with others that they too can heal. We aren’t as alone as our ego centered thinking would have us believe at times. Ten years ago when I asked my ex-husband for a divorce, I was a broken and a lost soul. I didn’t want to be a wife and stay at home mother anymore. I didn’t know what I wanted or who I was anymore. I had been trying to fit into the box others wanted of me. I was living two separate lives really, who I was on the inside and who I presented to the outside world. I voluntarily wore the heaviest mask which was invisible to me and I had no clue I was wearing every day. I did what I had to do to survive while separating myself from my own intensely damaged feelings. I felt incredibly alone in this world yet if you asked one person close to me at the time, they would tell you I was a happy woman! That’s how good I was at performing in the starring role of Maria Teresa Pratico. I was an academy award winning actress in my own movie taking “fake it till you make it” to new heights! I loathe that phrase by the way because these days I don’t fake anything. If it doesn’t feel good, I don’t do it. Period. I follow my heart and intuition at all times. After living so long separated from my own soul, I refuse to go back in a closet of darkness.

That’s not to say I don’t sit in my shadow at times and still work to integrate the sides of myself that are sticky and uncomfortable because I definitely do. To know light, we must accept the dark too. I write this blog so that others don’t have to ever feel as alone or crazy as I once did. We humans are made for self healing and unfortunately our society programs us into accepting a belief system that in part teaches us to ignore our emotions. I know better. When you can feel, you can heal and fully embrace who you are in the moment. That’s the key, living in the present by fully feeling instead of dissociating, ignoring or covering up what you feel. It’s the path to true freedom and I hope this blog stands as a beacon for that light to shine while allowing others to do the same. I muse over emotions and like my tagline states, “Getting in touch with your emotional truth, process pain and improving the human condition in the 21st century. Living out loud by my motto “Triumphing over Trauma”.

Question 3: How often do you blog?

When I first started this blog I was unemployed and therefore had loads of time on my hands. Since the last major trauma I endured, getting strangled by a disabled client I had while being a direct support staff for a non profit organization, I hadn’t held employment for five years from 2013-2018. In the fall of 2018, shortly after I started this blog I was hired by Starbucks to be a barista and then was quickly promoted to a shift supervisor. In many ways, this blog helped me get my life back in order. I was posting once a week for about one year. Last June, I went on an emotional leave from that position so I could fully concentrate on healing from the childhood sexual trauma because at that time I once again found myself not being able to function. I was leveled at my knees and ultimately I discovered that that trauma was the root of all my pain. My life began to go through a big metamorphosis and I was hired for a new position, managing a dear friend of mine’s boutique inside a luxury hotel in downtown Dallas. That job was and will always be a dream position because it helped me marry all aspects of who I am so perfectly. I started posting every 4 days and that’s the schedule I do my best to adhere to. If you’re a regular reader of my blog here, you know I usually post a poem of mine at the end of each post. My posts here are usually in conjunction with the creation of my poems. Both serve as an artist expression from my heart and of my soul.

Question 4: What are your thoughts about interacting with fellow bloggers?

That’s a big part and a true highlight of operating this blog! At first I was kind of shy and to myself here, as I am in life believe it or not! It takes me a minute to warm up and want to engage with others, I need to feel into it. This past fall I started branching out and reading more from my fellow bloggers and commenting on their posts. I quickly met some great ladies and gentleman that I truly admire for their own writing skills and how they touch my heart. We are fruitfully blessed my dears by our little community here and I must say especially now during this pandemic lockdown, reading and interacting with you all is a highlight of my day. I have met people from all over the world and it is such an honor for me to be able to do that. Each and everyone I follow and read serves to shine a light and bring joy into my life. I want to thank you all for your dedication to writing and your friendship. I’m a hugger and here is a virtual hug from me!

Question 5: Have your blogging expectation(s) been met?

I must admit, I had no idea what to expect coming into this and my one goal has always been to share my heart. I believe if I remain true to that this serves it’s purpose. Some of my friends and family have asked me if I make money from this blog and although I have considered changing my plan as of right now I don’t. My goal is quite simple. To share and connect with others. To put my artistic mark on this world as part of my digital footprint. I enjoy expressing myself in my writing here and I hope to spread some hope, inspiration and joy into the lives of whomever reads it!

Well, that’s it my dear readers! My nominees, if they should choose to participate are the following:

Erika Kind at https://erikakind.me/

Luna pen to paper at https://lunatheblog.com/

V at https://millenniallifecrisis.org/

Meg at https://wheregoodadvicehappens.water.blog/

Unique Soul at https://coronadayslockdown.wordpress.com/

Here are my five questions:

1. Why did you start writing and what led you to start a blog here on WordPress?

2. If you could go anywhere in this world, where would it be and why?

3. If you could have one superpower what would you choose and why?

4. What are some of your favorite hobbies besides writing?

5. If you could sit down and have a conversation with anybody living or passed, who would it be and why?

Please check out my two books of poetry available on Amazon at the following links below: