Monday Inspiration: June 22, 2015

By: Gabriela Yareliz

I saw the bar exam countdown calendar. Thirty-something days left. I shuddered. This is insane; the way time has run away, kidnapping our summer. For those still in law school doing internships, their internships are halfway done. It’s that time in the summer when exhaustion settles into numbness, and even Shakespeare in the Park is too long to enjoy.

Summer has officially just begun, but my mind is already escaping to one of my favorite times of the year, autumn. Too soon, I know. But with the way time is running, it will be here before we know it. Maybe all this talk of autumn and summer ending is crazy talk. Maybe. Perhaps, it’s the bar exam anxiety getting to me. Maybe it’s the fact that this is my last summer. Once one enters the working world there are no more semesters, no more summers, and no more long-long, Puerto Rican style holiday breaks… This exciting professional life will begin. A new apartment, a new routine– it will be great, but different. Anyway, what is to come will come, soon enough. Focusing on now, there is summer (which in every Floridian’s mind started before this Sunday in Florida because of the 100-degree weather May and June offered us in the Sunshine State), a slowly building tan on my olive skin, a heat that doesn’t want to let me breathe (causing me to reminisce on the summer when I first moved to Florida)… It’s one of those sunny, hot, half-naked summers in Florida with an occasional evening thunderstorm that turns steamy.

And it’s Monday, on top of all of this badinage and rambling. Monday has been a bit frustrating, tiring and anxiety-filled. I won’t lie. But here we are, at the start of a new week. Let’s make it one of fighting the fear, the exhaustion and the clock.

I am off to review flashcards in a hammock. Got to keep at it, and keep marching up my own mountain with my 70-pound books. When we climb up obstacles, maybe anxiety weighs heavier than everything else in the load. So before climbing, maybe it’s worth exchanging it for hope. Hope doesn’t weigh us down, instead it takes us higher.

Off to climb. I hope your climb this week is one that in the end makes you smile.

Friday Glee: Appreciative Love

“Need-love cries to God from our poverty; Gift-love longs to serve, or even to suffer for, God; Appreciative love says: ‘We give thanks to thee for thy great glory.’

Need-love says of a woman ‘I cannot live without her’; Gift-love longs to give her happiness, comfort, protection – if possible, wealth; Appreciative love gazes and holds its breath and is silent, rejoices that such a wonder should exist even if not for him, will not be wholly dejected by losing her, would rather have it so than never to have seen her at all.”

C.S. Lewis

Bar Exam Body Image Goals

By: Gabriela Yareliz

When you sit and study for 16 hours a day, something is bound to change or give. I am not going to lie, it freaked me out a bit. While you can remain healthy, the sedentary lifestyle takes its toll. Mind you, I am not planning on gaining thirty pounds. That is not the point. The point is, I guess, as much as it pains me to say it, that even when we think we are over some insecurities, they somehow pop up to haunt us. The truth is, New York and my work schedule made me thinner, and there is some wiggle room my hips used to fill that I have been pretty afraid to gain back.

So, I have decided that instead of fighting the inevitable and falling into a negative body image mindset, it is time to channel an icon. A woman who doesn’t believe in diets or cutting back on carbs. A woman who has always expressed herself with security and loves fullness. The one and only (and very Italian) Monica Bellucci.

My new motto, as I study for the bar and consume more food than usual to fuel the brain power, is: “Instead of going to the gym, I dress in black – a lot more practical and much more fun,” Monica Bellucci told the Daily Mail.  Maybe, if I play my cards right, I’ll score some Bellucci curves by the end of the summer. Or at the very least, I will walk away with her badass mindset.

Soul Structure

By: Gabriela Yareliz

I live in a wilderness that is quietly loud. And while I may not rest here forever, I carry the wild to my every endeavor.

It’s simplicity mixed with what is natural; mixed with extravagant colors and memorable fragrances.

It’s peace, mixed with hope and belief. It’s miles and miles of freedom and openness. It’s honesty, with its pain and beauty.

It’s purpose, mixed with the clean and dirty. It’s loud, mixed with deafening silence.

It’s the hot and the cold and creatures untold. It’s curiosity mixed with discovery; the obvious and the hidden.

This is the world I carry inside.

Elizabeth Brewster was right–“People are made of places.”

And I am made up of here.

Reflections Before Bedtime #26

By: Gabriela Yareliz

Walking around here is like walking through a thick stew. It’s warm, thick and pretty much spicy.

It’s the land where seashells crackle under our feet, where lizards come out to greet us, and where the sky, even after sunset, is drop-dead gorgeous. We almost envy the stars.

The salty air and swooshing waves remind us to go where fear dares not beckon. So much in life is about moving past pain and comfort. It’s about realizing that we have a purpose that goes beyond us, but also not allowing others to have undue influence and control. It’s about realizing that the stars in the deep blue shine for us. The dark night sounds and buzzing fade into a personal stillness.

In the hot, dreamy nights of summer, we find that life is waiting for us to shape it. It takes beating fear and finally being assertive about what we want. We then take our dreams and mix them into a medley with reality and the impossible that loves to wink at us and bolster our wings.

Laughter. Love. Uncertainty. Tears. Sacrifice. Joy.

It is about seeing present sacrifices as small compared to great rewards; about holding a hand, even if it is just for a minute; about enjoying the rain even if it lasts all evening.

Such a sweet song. It’s as sweet as the heat that melts us like butter. Tonight, and forever after this, the world is ours, and the sea reminds us of our endless possibilities.

Monday Inspiration: June 8, 2015

“Stop planting flowers in people’s yards who aren’t going to water them.” Unknown

By: Gabriela Yareliz

So much has happened. Life continues to change in delightful ways. Nostalgia grips; beginnings commence; and other things end. Moments of transition are so bittersweet. Regardless, moving forward is always something positive no matter how huge the growing curve ahead of one seems. When important things are achieved, less and less seems impossible.

Summer is sending us sunny days with cool breezes. Sidewalks bustle with curiosity, delight and frustration.

It’s time to take a break from the city hustle-bustle and move out to wide-open spaces, soft showers, and a silence that allows the rustle of the trees to be loud.

I was sitting out on the stoop the other evening. The breeze was perfect. It felt so human. Take a break from the routine this week, and be human.

I hope you have a wonderful start to your week. Make it a positive one. Do something that is extra summery this week. Embrace the season. Embrace life. Even though it’s Monday, take time to unwind. Find rest and something beautifully unexpected in God.

“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”
Jimi Hendrix

“Can you imagine the world if we only saw souls and not bodies?”
Hedonist Poet

“Christ wrecks us, holds us and rebuilds us: it is the greatest blessing we can ever hope for.” T.B. LaBerge // Jesus, His Grace, and The Gospel.

“I have so much of you in my heart.” John Keats

“If, when no one is watching us, we are building ourselves up in the Word of God, then, when a crisis comes, we shall stand; but if we are not building on the Word of God, when a crisis comes we shall go down, no matter what our wills are like.”

Oswald Chambers

“We please Him most, not by trying to make ourselves good, but by throwing ourselves into His arms with all of our imperfections and believing that He understands everything–and still loves us.”

A.W. Tozer

“Man are mirrors, or ‘carriers’ of Christ to other men. Usually it is those who know him Who bring them to others. That’s why the church, The whole body of Christians shown him to one another, is so important. It is easy to think that the church has a lot different objects-education, building, missions, holding services… The church exist for nothing else but to draw all men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the Cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became man for no other purpose. It is even doubtful, you know, whether the whole universe was created for any other purpose.” C.S. Lewis

“In my deepest wound I saw your glory and it astounded me.” St. Augustine 

[Images from Tumblr]