My reality.
Not everything works out for me. That’s just not real life. I do have crazy awesome things happen in my life, but I also learn every single day how to live better with what I have. I read books with topics on self awareness, personality, connection, living in the present, and loving on purpose. I also have people in my life that are constantly keeping up with my feelings and telling me how I could be better. It’s more so how I choose to live than how my life is. Even with all the good; I have really bad days, I go through depression all too often, I get hurt, I get let down, I get pushed away, and along with experiencing close deaths and close rejection, I have needs and unfulfilled desires. Why wouldn’t I be honest about that? I have nothing to hide but my most personal encounters, and those are not hidden because of regret, but stored in my mind and journals as encounters of love and loss that are too precious to be shared until the moment calls for it.
My pains are no less than anybody else’s, because they’re mine and they’re what I’m connected with. You wouldn’t understand my pain, and I wouldn’t understand yours, but we both understand the word all too well. Pain is pain, just as hurt is hurt, just as rejection is rejection, and we can all learn from how each other processes it all, even though the situations are different. (A reason I don’t post about the specific situation I’m going through, but my feelings, thoughts, and beliefs on how to deal with the pain or hurt of it.)
I choose the life I want to see myself live. That’s where I keep my focus, that’s where my perspective stems from and that’s what I hold on to in dire moments when I am falling apart. I oftentimes talk to my reflection in the mirror just to convince myself back into a better reality or I’ll even stare into my eyes until I come to a realization that I’m better than how I’m feeling in that moment. Honestly, these things are so real for me. Sometimes dealing with falling apart looks like allowing what some might see as insanity for a moment to shed light on your inmost thoughts that you can’t reach normally. In these times I think back through my past and find what held me together, then relive it until I believe it. If I can notice the patterns in my life, I can more easily convince myself that I’m okay now. The things I tell myself today with words and thoughts is what’s going to set up how I will be thinking in the days to come.
I want to learn about anything and everything, so when people come and tell me about an opinion or passion that they have, I soak it up. If I notice they have something in their life and personality that I want; I ask, listen, and become a sponge for their words. But as I continue to figure out what my beliefs are and how powerful of a person I am, I realize that I often don’t question what these people say to me. In a conversation recently with one of the people I highly look up to about their beliefs, I found myself so naturally questioning him and returning my opinion on the subject. Only then did I realize that I had reached a level with him that I thought would take me years of knowledge. He is a person who’s beliefs are brilliant, but I found out in that moment that mine are just as powerful and valid. We can both learn from how the other thinks and their outcomes.
It’s not that everything works out for me… It doesn’t. Honestly, many days I think I have the worst luck, but that’s because all I know is what I experience, and I choose to keep learning from every experience I find myself in. Even though that doesn’t stop the tears when I want something and things go wrong, it does help me to make more sense of real life and understand that things don’t happen how we expect and we just gotta roll with it. Something else is sure to happen that will change our history. We can’t keep sitting in our disappointment because what we have in front of us is the destiny we are waiting for.
Our destiny is what we are living in right now. We are making and changing history with every decision, every hurt, every moment, and every outcome.
Makari Asriel
Just a bit of me; say yes!
So I realize that a lot of you don’t know what I do with my life. In fact, I don’t even know what I do with my life. I just say yes. When opportunities to travel come up, I say yes. When I feel a prompting to do something, I say yes. When a situation is uncomfortable, I still say yes. Though I may have some crazy stories about some of the things I’ve said yes to, I do not regret a moment of it. What I do changes my life and changes the lives of the people I come in contact with.
Just last week I was part of an experience that impacted who I am. I have spent the last month in Santa Barbara, California at an Artist Boot Camp. Let me tell you, it really was a boot camp. There were 3 different focuses at this school (acting, music, & film production) and I was in the acting portion of it. I spent over 5 hours a day in acting class and several more hours doing homework for it. When I wasn’t doing that, I was in sessions with incredible speakers who are changing the world through the arts. It was such a change from “normal life,” being stuck on a mountain with barely any cell service, internet, down time, or sleep, but it was absolutely necessary for who I want to become and what I am working towards.
In my last class with my acting group, we all did a connection exercise that will stick with us forever. It started by pressing hands together in a circle (20 or so of us, with the rest of the camp sitting around the edge of our little class room watching us), and making eye contact with each person in our group. From there we were to move as a group and create a company of actors who breathe and work as one. We did this. In a way that left every person in that room with tears running down their faces. I can’t explain it or do it justice. Without knowing what we were doing, we worked as one, connected with each other, and our final move as a group was holding hands, taking a bow, and clapping for each other. The moment we did this, the music stopped, not a dry eye was in the place, and we ran together for a final group hug, knowing that what just happened was an experience that would forever change us. All because each one of us looked at each other and said yes to the moment.
Even though I haven’t slept in a month, and today is my first day home, saying yes to what I knew was right was the best decision I could have ever made. The people I have done life with this summer from all over the country, the friends I’ve made, the places I’ve been, and what I’ve learned about myself, has impacted my life in ways that will never stop increasing.
I am blessed, blessed, blessed. And I am so incredibly thankful for each person that has been a part a it, and helped me through it. I will never be the same.
I believe in saying no, and I am in the process of writing a post on that too, but right now it’s about saying yes to you, yes to your heart, and yes to others. Go for it, be you, be inspired. There is always a way. Know that, believe that, live that.
If you know you, trust your yes.
Love always, Makari Asriel
My acting track 9’14’15
Makari Asriel 