PhD in Being Me

Tag: Poetry

  • Disappointment

    The sun setting in our backyard

    Disappointment – a poem

    Note from me: I wrote this poem a few months ago and I’d been wondering where I saved it! Well, I found it this morning, and lo and behold, it has a similar feel to the one I published yesterday about Rage. I can feel how much easier it is for me to be with my strong feelings instead of pushing them down like I used to. I am finding so much strength in admitting my feelings, my weaknesses, my chronic fatigue and anxiety. I used to think that being human made me weak, but now I see that owning my humanity through being open and vulnerable, both with myself and others, is a friggin superpower.

    Disappointment.

    It is flowing through my bones.

    It seems to start deep down within me

    And it works its way up through my conscious awareness

    Until I feel it winding its way around my organs.

    It starts squeezing them, choking them off from their energy source.

    The disappointment seeps into every aspect of my beingness

    And it seems to want to choke me from the inside.

    Disappointment.

    I want to run away from it but there is nowhere I can hide

    Because it is everywhere within me.

    I want to drown it and be the one to choke it but I can’t seem to grasp it.

    The bitterness of the disappointment echoes everywhere within my body, which

    Keep it going and going and going.

    Disappointment.

    Why? 

    Why are people so disappointing?

    Why is the state of our world like this, so utterly disappointing?

    Why can’t we seem to overcome this madness, this unconsciousness?

    Either way, I won’t be able to answer these questions,

    Because it’s just me and this massive disappointment.

    I guess we’d better learn to coexist and hang out together.

    ……

    Hey disappointment….I know you’re here for a reason, an especially good reason.

    You are super valid.  People are pretty damn disappointing lately.

    Wanna watch a movie and eat some pizza together?

    Let’s keep each other company while we nurture these strong feelings.

    And may they be healed with every moment that I am honest about my experience, for myself, for the disappointed, for the ones causing disappointment and for all.

    © Bradlee Zrudlo 2022. All Rights Reserved.

  • RAGE

    Photo by moein moradi on Pexels.com

    RAGE – a poem

    Rage.

    It burns under my skin.

    It fills up my throat and threatens to erupt in screams.

    Rage.

    It wants me to yell, scream, swear and throw things.

    Rage.

    It makes me feel powerful enough that I can breathe flames and roar so the whole world can hear me. 

    Rage.

    It is a gift.  

    It tells me when I need to do something for me and signals when I may be overgiving or forgetting to take care of my own needs.

    Rage.

    It scares me and empowers me all at once.  

    Rage.

    It gave me the energy and power to re-order my website today instead of being such a victim to my circumstances.

    Rage.

    It came to me today to say, “hey you chose to make lunch for your family right when you were in the middle of something that you were really enjoying.  You can chose you first, your family knows you love them to the farthest reaches of the universe.”

    Rage.

    My friend.  My guide.  

    A censored part of me that I really want to get to know better.

    Rage.

    Hey Rage…I want to hang out with you and really get what you’re here to teach me.

    Want to be a more welcome and included part of my life, instead of being relegated to the deepest, darkest parts of myself that I never visit?

    Do you want to explore together so we can both life in more balanced and healthy and empowered ways?  

    Ya?  

    Awesome.  

    Thanks Rage, you’re the best.  I don’t know why it took me so long to get you and to really feel and hear you.  

    Thanks for waiting for me.  

    Photo by Muffin Creatives on Pexels.com

    A note from me about this poem: It felt so good to write this. It felt good to acknowledge my rage and to get to know it better the more words I wrote. I really look forward to honoring my feelings of rage more and to make space for me to feel them. Okay, I may also be looking forward to throwing some sticks on my abundantly large property where no one can get hurt. May we all be open to what our emotions, even the unpleasant ones, are here to teach us. Big hugs!

    © Bradlee Zrudlo 2022. All Rights Reserved.

  • Trusting myself

    Sometimes I wonder how I got to be 42 and I’m only now deepening my trust in myself. Other times, I understand exactly how I am at this place. The most important point I’d like to make is that it is a huge accomplishment and blessing that I now trust myself. After a lifetime of second guessing myself and looking to others to know what’s in my best interests, I am feeling much more confident.

    What does trusting myself look like in every day life? Here are some examples:

    • following my intuition (my gut) even when people are giving me advice that is contrary to those feelings
    • knowing that I belong to myself, so that no matter where I go, I will be with myself, I will fit in and I will belong
    • trusting in my ability to make healthy and wise choices for myself instead of only following advice that is on a blog, in a book, on Facebook or from a friend or family member

    Now that I am more connected to who I am (and really, who I’ve always been), I am able to understand how little I trusted or believed in myself. I have been learning to tend the garden of my mind, heart, body and soul, and I am acquiring the skills I need to be my own eternal and precious gardener. I see now that I am the master gardener, even if I sometimes only feel like a beginner or intermediate gardener.

    I have committed to making my garden more cared for, tended and weeded. I can see, feel and sense the huge difference these last few years of care have made to my eternal garden. I wrote a poem called The Eternal Gardener for a friend of mine a few years ago. I thought it was for him and about him, but I always had this funny feeling that I was missing the mark. As I’ve been writing this post, I understand that it is really for me, from the deepest part of me to the part of me who forget herself and didn’t know how to trust herself.

    I am often humbled by the enormity of the wisdom and light that comes out of my fingertips as I type and from my mouth when I speak, and this is a time for me to truly trust that wisdom and light and acknowledge it in a more grateful and empowered way. This sentence really highlights the whole point of getting a PhD in Being Me and I truly hope that by reading this blog you are more empowered to become an expert if yourself too.

    I share this poem with all of you, from the depth of my heart and soul to the depth of yours. With every word you read of this poem, may it help facilitate, nurture and strengthen your trust and connection to the awesomeness you are, and have always been. With so much love, Bradlee.

    The Eternal Gardener

    I want you to know yourself as I know you;

    As the breath that we all breathe,

    As the song in the wind,

    As the light that warms our planet,

    As the balm that heals all wounds.

    I want you to know yourself as I see you;

    With all of the glory, beauty and purity of

    God’s holy name that whispers

    in each and every heartbeat.

    Your words are like magic as they weave through my being,

    neatly and tidily collecting all suffering and carrying it home to Heaven.

    You are a gift to all who meet you and I honour you.

    I honour that you need time to realize your beauty and divinity

    and that it is only my role to notice and compliment your gifts.

    It will be up to you to dance your dance,

    and to sing your song,

    with no judgement,

    thought of worthiness or

    regard for embarrassment.

    I will wait for you and I will be with you,

    to love you and encourage you, dearest gardener, as you plant

    your own seeds of love. 

    May you watch them grow

    and may you learn how to nourish them

    as you so effortlessly do for the souls you encounter.

    Take your time, dear gardener and tend your own

    precious garden and I will be here to rejoice with you

    as you watch the blossoming unfold.

    I will be here to shine my sunlight

    and offer some drops of my own water,

    should you ever need it.

    © Bradlee Zrudlo 2022. All Rights Reserved.

  • Where does my power go?

    I am like a thief, carrying around a burgled bag of jewels, only I’m carrying around my power and I’m always scared of being caught holding it.

    Why would I be scared of owning and holding my power? Isn’t it mine? Doesn’t it belong to me?

    Despite the fact that I am carrying it around, sometimes I seem to lose it and I’m stuck wondering, where did my power go?

    Why it is even so separate from me? Why am I carrying it around instead of embodying it? Who first took it and did I give it willingly, thinking it would get me the love I so craved but couldn’t get or give to myself?

    In this last week, I watched myself give my power away and then feel ashamed, small and weak while others were trying to help me after I gave them such a valuable, treasured part of me. I wasn’t able to stop myself from giving it away and I got to see the devastating effect it had on me to be without it.

    Dearest power, I love you and I’m so sorry for thinking I could barter and give you away in order to be more whole. I want nothing more than to be with you, to live with you, to be full of you, to breathe you in more deeply with every inhalation. I want to hold you close and never let you go because you are a part of me and I need you. Dearest power, I need you, not whatever it is I was trading you for. I don’t ever want to cry the tears of our separation ever again, instead I want to dance in ecstasy with you and revel in the joys of our unification. I want to feel someone asking me to give you away to them and feel so overjoyed that I don’t need to do that anymore, knowing that you and I are forever as one.

    Dearest power, I love you and I’m so grateful to be writing this ode to you instead of crying tears over how I’ve given you away yet again.

    Dearest power, with every breathe I take, may I make the healthiest and wisest choices to keep us more healed, whole and integrated together than ever before and may we inspire others to do the same.

    Photo by Alex Andrews on Pexels.com

    ©️ Bradlee Zrudlo, 2022. All Rights Reserved.