Meaning of Life

Welcome to September, Moths!

It has been one long heck of a summer. I wish I could say it was filled with memorable nights and drinking until the sun came up, but unfortunately the real world had me tied down to work and school. Which I'm not necessarily complaining about because I saved up money to live comfortably while I'm away at college for the next couple of months, so there are trade-offs.

Now I know you're all thinking, are you going to tell us which school you go to, or what?? Since you begged, I'll share! I will be a senior this year at Rutgers University in New Brunswick! I transferred here last year and have been so grateful for the house I was accepted into. This house, called Helyar House, is unlike any other living arrangement out there. It is a co-op/coed, fifty year establishment filled with long-lasting traditions and amazing influential people. It really is a humbling experience to work alongside 39 other people to keep a house running effectively and-for the most part-smoothly.

Part of the uniqueness of this house is that the students who live within it basically have full control with a strong sense of independence. We have an E-board consisting of a president, vice president, food coordinators, historians (one of them being me), etc. The members of this "E-board" moved in a couple of days early to acclimate to the house for the upcoming semester, consisting of some training sessions discussing things like diversity, constructive personality exercises, stress/time management, etc. At the end of one of these sessions, our residence counselor, Neha, left us this food-for-thought before heading to bed:

What are three or four things you want to be remembered for when you die?
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That escalated quickly, huh?

The context behind this is that we were discussing things about each other, such as things we feel we are oppressed by, memories we had about issues with gender/race/confrontation in the past, and things alike. The goal of all of this was to feel a deeper connection with the other members of our E-board, as well as feeling comfortable enough to share these things that may be crouching in the back of our minds. It really hit me, and as I laid in bed that night, I couldn't get my mind off of the thought. Sometimes we are sidetracked by all of the clutter in our lives. Clutter can be stress at work, worrying about if you look "too fat" in this outfit or whether or not we're having a bad hair day or worrying about posting this picture rather than the other, etc. We hang on so closely to these minuscule issues that when we are asked to take a step back from it all, it seems so utterly ridiculous that we wasted any time worrying about such things in the first place.

And by we I mean I, naturally.

So what are my three or four things? I'm going to share them with all of you lovely people:

• I want to be remembered for my smile and the way it lights up the darkest of rooms (as I have been so graciously told)
• I want to be remembered for having a kind and compassionate nature towards others
• I want to be remembered for my unwavering passion for wildlife, and things alike 
• I want to be remembered for my infectious, side-hurts-so-bad, only-stopping-to-gasp-for-air, kind of laugh
• And above all, I want to be remembered for all of the happiness I've brought into other people's lives

Let me be clear: I'm planning on my death being a veeeeeeeeeeeeery long time from now, and this is just an exercise to gain a perspective on life. 

Neha also said that if there ever comes a time in our lives where we are at a crossroads, or are going through a difficult situation in which life seems impossibly overwhelming, that we ought to utilize and retouch on these in order to reorientate our souls with our meaning of life. In other words, to take a step back from the magnifying glass we look through every day. No one is going to remember that huge pimple you had during the tenth grade that you ogled over all day, or that one time your belly rolls showed when your crop top was a little too cropped. None of these things will matter once we've departed from this physical world. It's how you chose to live your life, and how you treated people along the way, that matters.

I urge anyone reading this to take a few minutes to yourself in a quiet and secluded place to think about, and write down, what it is you wish to be remembered by when you die. Don't treat this as a morbid exercise, but rather your own guide from which to touch base with your core/soul. Write them down and store them somewhere you can access, somewhere it can remembered when you need it the most. These are for you and no one else, so really dig deep. 

What are you living for, moths? xoxo 

Bedtime Bliss

Good evening, Moths!

Hope everyone had a lovely Saturday! Tomorrow is Super Bowl Sunday, which means good company and delicious food. But let's focus on the here and now and leave tomorrow where it belongs: in the future. Maybe you're a college student reading this from the comfort of your dorm room, or a mom of three unwinding from a busy day, finally getting some time to yourself. No matter where you are reading this from, or what your situation is at the moment, I think we can all agree that night time is a magical time. It's a time to reflect on everything that has happened that day without having to expend anymore energy, and a time to feed your exhaustion with delicious sleep. It's a special intermediate zone between the sweet ending of one day and the fresh beginning of another. Sleep can do wonders for the body--when you get enough of it--and it is filled with that magical (I know, I said it again!) thing called dreams. Dreams are our subconscious playing out scenes from deep within our mind where anything is possible, like a film being projected directly from our imagination. Some people can recall the most specific details from their dreams (like my mom), while others lose the memory of them as soon as their eyes open and their senses are awoken (like me). Either way, we're all dreamers. We all dream of something while we sleep, whether we remember it or not.

My eyelids are drooping just typing this post..
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One of the greatest feelings in the world is waking up in the early morning hours thinking it's around the time you need to be awake, only to find that it's three in the morning and you have several hours until your alarm will ring. I am a very restless sleeper (probably due to all of the technology I look at right before going to sleep..) and almost every night when I inevitably wake up, I check the time--I somehow always remember that time the following morning--and it's such a scrumptious feeling knowing that I can drift right back into blissful sleep. Sleep itself is such a weird thing. Our body goes into a stasis of sorts, where our breathing is low and our muscles are completely  relaxed, not needed for the coming hours. Complete darkness. Time is such an interesting component of sleep because we have absolutely no concept of it when unconscious. Similar to getting anesthetized for surgery: you count backwards from ten for as long as you can hold on, and in a blink you are awake and the surgery is over with zero recollection, in some cases of the hours it took for them to complete it. While our brain is still active, our senses are muted and the world is silenced. That statement is what makes up the difficult debate over a patient in a coma. While the physical body may be immobile, the mind still has the ability to be conscious. Can they hear someone that is speaking to them and comprehend it, but simply be unable to respond? That's an interesting discussion question, but let's leave that for another post.

Let's return to the present moment. Are your eyelids feeling heavy? Is your body sunken into the mattress beneath you? Let go. Let go of all of the stress, all of the thoughts, all of the activity that today brought. All that happened today belongs in the past and cannot be changed, no matter how much you think about it. Let it live in the past while you allow your body and mind to rejuvenate itself for the new day ahead. Let every single muscle in your body let go of any tension. What I like to do is listen to a guided mediation (for example: Guided Sleep Meditation) which I find to be highly successful in helping me to focus on falling asleep and quieting the activity of my mind. What I love about the one I attached a link to, besides his voice, is that he talks you through every muscle--from your toes all the way up to your scalp--so you can identify what parts of your body are holding the most tension, and ease them to relaxation. Everyone has their own experience when meditating, but I get this warm, almost tingly sensation that moves up through my body like a wave of comfort that simply washes over me, leaving me numb and completely at ease. He counts down from ten towards the end and I almost always fall asleep before reaching one (which I know because the next morning I can't, for the life of me, recollect what number he got to before I fell asleep). If you've never listened to a guided meditation before, I highly recommend you try implementing one into your daily regimen. The app Buddhify is my #1 favorite guided mediation supplement and it is perfect for beginners! It may feel silly at first listening to one, but they are so spiritually healing and buddhify is broken up into different categories so you can listen to one no matter what you are doing at that moment--anywhere from eating, trouble falling asleep, difficult emotions, or even walking in nature!

That's all I have for tonight, I really hope you try guided mediation for yourself if you've never done so before, especially the one I attached a link for in this post.  It's one of those things that is tailored to you, and is completely different from one individual to the next. There's no right or wrong way of doing it. Some people love it, some simply don't have the patience for it, but you can train your mind by listening to them, similar to how you train your muscles by lifting weights. If you decide to try it for the first time, comment on here and share your experience! I would love to hear how it went and how you feel about it.

***It's that magical time!!***
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Well, go on.
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Let go
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Relax
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Dream
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Sweet dreams, Moths. xoxo