F.E.A.R

My therapist recently told me that we have a choice for how to handle fear. We can Fuck Everything and Run (lol!) or Face Everything and Recover. He said that both are ok but of course facing & recovering is more healthy and in the end will likely bring us the more desired results.

Recently, I encountered a scary situation. And I remembered my F.E.A.R choices. And I chose to……fuck everything and run. Lol!

The scary situation? Having to go into a building with an elevator.

In case you don’t know, I’m deathly afraid of being closed in small places alone, especially elevators – always have been and don’t know why – sometimes I actually feel like I’m going to die when I just think about it; I actually feel like death is around me, squeezing me, suffocating me. You can read more about my struggles & victories in these posts if you want!

It actually freaking happened

Serendipitous Strength

welcome to rock bottom – the only way is up

My choices? To suck it up and get on the elevator & know I have the courage & strength to handle it (going up I have to get on because the door to stairs is locked but coming back down, I can take the stairs), to take advantage of this opportunity for growth or to take the stairs and avoid that fear and the possibility of getting trapped on one by myself. And yes, I chose the second.

Generally, I’m really good with facing my fear and even staying calm and getting inside the elevators alone. But this is the building where I recently got stuck in one, very briefly but still not pleasant(and I handled it so well, I must say!) and I just felt that I was in no mood for any nonsense that morning. Lol

It’s good for me to get onto elevators alone as much as I can so I can stregthen my courage & inner peace with them. I haven’t suffered any terrible relapse recently. But it’s possible that I can as I have before. Sometimes my heart still races a bit and my hands almost tremble when I get onto elevators alone but sometimes I’m very calm when I do. For a while, my phobic fear was pretty much gone, healed, recoverd. But I suffered a relapse a while ago and began to struggle again. Nowhere near as badly as before but still a bit of a struggle.

The morning I was in that building, I was struggling with the phobic fear and wasn’t up to facing it.

So when the elevator doors opened, I bolted and ran for the stairs.

I won’t make a habit of it. I will still choose to get into elevators alone and know I can handle whatever comes my way. I will remember my strength and progress and accomplishments. But there will also be moments I’ll give into weakness, forget my strength and courage and take the easy way, the way that doesn’t allow as much growth and an opportunity to strengthen my courage & virtue of patience. And that’s ok too!

We don’t always, always have to be strong and brave and inspiring and positive and perfect.

I’m generally very positive and mostly use social media for sharing inspirational and/or happy/positive things. But I also think it’s good to be genuine and share my not so inspiring experiences/choices. Like running away and not facing my fear.

I was disappointed that I couldn’t write a post about how I was brave and strong in the face of my phobic fear and how I handled it like a pro! Lol I was sorry I couldn’t use my own experience to try to inspire others or encourage someone to be brave, feel the fear and do it anyway. I could have written that post but it would be dishonest.

But then I remembered that sharing our weaknesses and less than pleasant aspects and experiences can be just as inspiring and just as encouraging and uplifting to others as sharing our strengths. There are others who run, make mistakes, have setbacks, do things that aren’t the best. And sharing this can help each other see that someone else understands and that it’s actually ok. We have permission to not always be positive and strong and brave. We have permission to falter. To stumble. To fall. We have permission to run once in a while. Just so long as it doesn’t become a habit or way of life, it’s all good! And if it does become an unhealthy habit, that’s ok, we can fix it. Habits can be reversed. Fall and get back up.

Feel the fear and do it anyway.

Or not.

Whatever you choose, I’m here cheering you on!

Virtual Hugs to you! ❤ (virtual hugs are good for all because even if you don’t like actual hugs, you’re not actually being touched. lol)

Xoxo Kim

My Endless Love❤

“…and your eyes
Your eyes, your eyes
They tell me how much you care
Ooh yes, you will always be
My endless love.”❤

Last year I got to spend Valentine’s Day with this lil baby. His name is Quincy. He got sick and died a few months ago but he’ll always be my endless love. I did not get to see him frequently and I cherished (and still cherish) every moment we shared together. He lived in a nursing home with his daddy and I used to walk him sometimes. He was so sweet & adorable and a lil porker. Sometimes he was mischievous and would run out into the hallway when he wasn’t supposed to. He knew how to get back to his room after we got back inside the building and stepped off the elevator. He knew his way around better than I did. He was never snappy and always sweet. He let me pick him up. I would take him to the park and he had so many friends there. Everyone, everywhere loved him. He got endless compliments.

Last year, on Valentine’s Day, they were having a big Valentine’s Day party for the nursing home residents. All the old people were dressed up and dancing to this song.

Endless Love – Lionel Richie/Diana Ross

How cute!

I miss & love Quincy and am so thankful our lives crossed. His death still knocks the wind out of me. It was so unexpected. He just got sick overnight. My heart completely broke when my boss told us.

But my love is more powerful than the pain of the loss. Quincy was around eleven years old I think. And he lived a very happy life and was surrounded by so much love.

In loving memory of sweet Quincy baby…💘❤

Xoxo Kim

Love is never lost❤

“All this time, I had hoped and prayed for a miracle. Maybe I’d missed it. Maybe the real miracle was all around me. Perhaps the greatest miracle of all was that I could let her go and never lose her. Why? I don’t know. I don’t think God explains why. Not because he isn’t listening or because he doesn’t care. But perhaps because the reasons don’t make sense. Not now, anyway. When Lazarus died, Christ didn’t tell his sisters everything would be all right. It wasn’t. Lazarus was dead and they were in pain. Christ knew Lazarus would live but he didn’t belittle his friends’ grief. He didn’t try to explain it away. He didn’t try to dry their tears. He wept with them. He loved them. It’s in that love that I trust now.” ❤

Warning – Spoiler alert about a movie I watched, called Charley! This is a quote in the movie that I shared above. It’s about a Morman man who falls in love with a girl who is very unlike the kind of girl he always thought of as his dream girl. He always thought he wanted a simple, predictable woman. A woman who is reserved and grew up religious, one who is “safe” and cautious like himself.

Then he meets Charley and she’s anything but predictable. She’s loud and funny and spontaneous. She’s outgoing and skeptical. He never knows what shes going to say or do next.

Here is the spoiler.

I was in the mood for a lighthearted, funny romantic comedy, which is what this movie is at first. Then it turns dark out of nowhere. It was completely unexpected. In the description it says nothing about a tragedy which occurs towards the end. I won’t completely give it away but the man suffers a great loss. At first he will not accept it. He outright refuses. He denies. He screams, cries, sobs, yells in anger, throws things. He has a breakdown and cannot understand why his god would allow him to experience such a tragedy. He prays & prays for what he thinks is the biggest miracle.

And it never happens. His prayer is not answered how he desperately hoped it would be. At first, he cannot bear his devastating loss. Then he realizes that when we love someone, even when that someone dies, we don’t lose that love. Love is forever.

I love the message about non-attachment. Even though I’m not a Mormon or woman of any kind of religious faith where they believe in a god, I find that this message resonates with me on a deep level.

Perhaps the greatest miracle of all was that I could let her go and never lose her.

We can let go of those we love when we have to and still not lose that love we share with them. We will love & lose as long as we live, humans & nonhumans, friends, family, pets…and it will be extremely painful but we will go on and carry that love with us, always.

Also, I love the message about Jesus letting his friends grieve, weep, and cope with their terrible loss, without trying to make everything ok, without invalidating their pain, without any kind of platitudes. He just lets them be and shares their pain. I understand someone can argue that Jesus could have prevented this death or just healed their grief with his special powers….but that isn’t my point here.

Im not looking at this with a religious point of view as I am not a believer in this sort of thing. I’m just looking at it as a story with an inspiring aspect to it. This is a great way to be to others. To let them live their experiences without trying to change them or make things ok that can never be ok. No matter how positive we are and how happy we will be later, some things just aren’t ok to some people at this moment no matter what someone says or does. Suffering a devastating loss of someone close to us, human or nonhuman, may just never seem ok. And it may be better in some cases to let someone grieve, weep, suffer…how that person has to before moving forward into healing.

In this story, Jesus cried along with them. Sometimes maybe all someone needs is for us to sit close and share that pain.

What an inspiring movie. It is a religious movie but I also see a deeper message that even a “non-believer,” like myself, can be inspired by if we allow our mind to be open. The deeper message can resonate with us whether we are religious or not. It’s about how life can still be beautiful even after loss or other unpleasant experiences and how Love never truly is lost.

I hope you are having a beautiful day or night wherever in the world you are!

Much love & light & hugs!❤

Xoxo Kim

Morning stroll with my baby❤

This is my best friend & me on our morning walk yesterday! She is the sweetest girl! I love her to pieces! She is so deeply loving and so full of life. She loves to lounge around for snuggles and also loves to run around and play! She has a toybox full of toys and looks through it to see which toy looks good to play with at the moment. Too cute for words!

A lot of people are scared of her because she’s a big girl and very expressive and not social with humans or other dogs in general. She’s not a universal lover & only loves certain people. But once we have her heart, her love is boundless. I can just feel the love all around her when I’m with her. ❤ She has the best loving furever home and the best mommies who love her completely. She’s a spoiled lil Princess!

I love her more than I love this life itself! She’s not mine but I love her just the same. I take care of her for her mommies while they’re at work and sometimes we have fun sleepovers together!💜 She’s my heart & soul!

She loves barking/jumping at the furballs across the street and I was telling her “no doggies.” Lol And like I mentioned on Instagram when I shared the video, I’m not six years old; I just sound like I am. Lol

Much love & light,

Xoxo Kim💜

It actually freaking happened!!!!

(Not my photo)

I wrote this a few days ago and lost the courage to post it lol

Ahhh, fuck me, it finally happened!

Is someone kidding me or what?!

If you read my post here, you’re not going to believe this but it happened!

I GOT STUCK ON AN ELEVATOR BY MYSELF!!!! lol I promise I’m not joking.

(I would probably be too terrified to joke about that! 😲😨😱😭😢)

I’m really amused. I’m just laughing at the irony. It reminds me of the Alanis Morrissette song ‘cept my ironic predicament isn’t nearly as grave.

“Mr. Play It Safe was afraid to fly
He packed his suitcase and kissed his kids goodbye
He waited his whole damn life to take that flight
And as the plane crashed down he thought
‘Well isn’t this nice…‘
And isn’t it ironic… Don’t you think“

Alanis Morissette – Ironic

Somehow, somewhere in the back of my mind, I felt safe. As terrified as I was about getting trapped on an elevator by myself, some part of me believed with everything I have in me, that since I’m so scared of being trapped in one, it’s not going to happen. (This probably isn’t a statistically correct way of reasoning) What are the chances, right?!

Wrong!! It’s like the uni-verse got a consciousness and decided to play some cruel joke on me. Some twisted, sicko, psycho joke.

Tuesday, for work, I had to go to Center City, Philadelphia to visit this cutie:

When I got onto an elevator and the doors closed, I did what I really shouldn’t do and watched the digital floor numbers. When I watch, it feels like an eternity before they change. Just like waiting for food in an oven to be complete. Keep checking and it’s not getting done. Lol It just feels that way.

So anyway, I got on an elevator on the 4th floor, the doors closed, I watched the 4 and it was taking way too long to change and I told myself it’s just the usual thing where because I’m watching and waiting, it seems like forever. But no. Five seconds later, 10, 20, a minute (!!!!!) later and elevator is not moving and the red 4 is just there. Wwhhhaaattt?!?! And I’m waiting for panic to settle in.

But it doesn’t. I feel calm as can be. Wwhhhaaattt?!?! Me, stuck inside an elevator by myself and just a little tinge of anxiety?!?!

My heart began beating a little bit faster and my hands were a bit trembly but no panic or intense fear.

I pushed the “call” button and “alarm” button and they wouldn’t do 💩. The call button made a brief ringing noise but no one answered. I kept pushing them alternately, call, alarm, call, alarm. The alarm did nothing at all and call kept ringing with no answer. One thing I found comforting was the fact that I heard the janitor through the elevator doors. So I started knocking loudly on the doors and yelling “excuse me!” But no one answered me.

Then the elevator started calling out floor numbers and its voice started becoming jumbled and it was quickly calling out numbers that weren’t showing on the screen and the voice was speeding up. Then the elevator started going up instead of down, which was what I was trying to do, go down to the lobby.

Then a new fear crept in. The elevator seemed to be going berserk and I wondered if it was going to drop & crash and crush me to death or something. So this is my death day, for a second I was really wondering.

When it got to the 10th floor, it finally opened!!! And there was a kind young man holding an adorable golden puppy in his arms. I got off the elevator and explained what happened and told him he may not want to get on that one since it was just malfunctioning.

He thanked me and expressed empathy and told me it must have been scary. He had no idea! Probably a bit scary for anyone but a girl with the phobic fear I struggle with!? Since he seemed so warm & understanding, I told him about my immense fear and how I worked on myself, including professional therapy, to heal the fear, and he was so understanding! So here I was spilling my guts to a complete stranger in a hallway. And he listened so well. Im so touched!❤

I thought I was going to have a complete breakdown. Not because I felt like I was going to. I actually did not feel that way. But because I’m me and that’s what I do at the mere thought of being trapped in an elevator alone, break down. Lol

But I’m still standing!

It hit me harder when I got home at night. Still no panic or breakdowns but fear & anger. Im not sure what Im angry at but it’s just so bizarre and twisted that my worst nightmare actually came true. Law of attraction much? Lol

I’m so freaked out and don’t know what to make of it.

And I’m not completely sure why I did not panic while in the elevator or after it was all over. Looks like all my personal development work really paid off! I wasn’t sure if I was just shocked and too numb to feel fullblown fear but even later after it was all over and the shock wore off, I still wasn’t a wreck.

But right now thinking about being stuck in an elevator, I can’t imagine not panicking. It seems scarier in my head than it is in reality.

I used to hurt myself impulsively if I thought I was going to be stuck in an elevator. I would be so overcome in terror, I would go into a panic and scratch myself with my fingernails until my skin would bleed or I would just squeeze part of my body really hard, like not on purpose but just automatically. I even did this recently on an elevator but Tuesday I did not hurt myself at all or even think about it or have an urge to.

For as long as I can remember, I have recurring nightmares, off and on, about being trapped on an elevator by myself or just having to go on one and being terrified. When I was recently stuck in one, when I first realized it was happening, it felt like I was reliving one of my nightmares that happen when I sleep. That feeling only occurred at first then wore off.

So nightmares really do come true! 😉

Isn’t it ironic?

A little too ironic. 😃

And reading this, it may seem that I was in there a long while but it was really less than five minutes. I felt more like it was an inconvenience than a terrifying experience.

Hugs to everyone who wants any!

Much love & light,

Xoxo Kim ❤

Opportunity💜

Let’s plants seeds of love everywhere we go through acts of kindness, kind intentions, speech, thoughts….and the world will be a much more beautiful place! And if kindness isn’t currently our lifestyle, we can practice til it is! And if it already is, we can strengthen it through even more loving intentions & actions!❤ Let’s start with smiling at everyone we look at today & wishing everyone well! 😊

Much love & light,

Kim

Fly Eagles Fly!!! 🏈💚🏈💚

In honor of our big win tonight I’m sharing a couple cute pics (n a couple of me lol) & some quotes!

Here is a little Eagles fan, Ellie! 😙😚

And here is a girl I’m spending the night with:

Her name is Brownie. They are both sweet pitbull mixes.

It’s like New Year here but even more festive; there’s people screaming hysterically with instruments and fireworks and tear gas and confetti and all kinds of stuff! There’s police cars as well. How thrilling!

“Beware of the underdog”

“Stand up for the underdog, the ‘loser.’ Sometimes having the strength to show loving support for unacknowledged others turns the tides of our own lives.” 💜

“We grew up learning to cheer on the underdog because we see ourselves in them.”❤

“Songwriting and poetry are so commonly birthed from underdogs because one can make even the ugliest situations admirable, or more beautiful than the beautiful situations – they are the most graceful media in which the lines of society are distorted.” 💚💜

🏈

I hope you are having a beautiful & safe (!!!)day or night wherever in the world you are!

Much love & light,

Xoxo Kim 💚