It is a beautiful day, or else, a terrible one, depending on what you focus on. Basically, I am embracing the power of Focus. Where your attention goes, energy flows, and endlessly making and remaking the choice to focus on the beauty and endless joy of this present moment. After all, the present moment is all we have.Click "read more" for the rest of this NSFW photo set! It becomes more and more apparent to me that, at some point along the way, I have lost my ability to focus. An hour ago in the shower, while mindlessly scrubbing I was a million miles away, thinking of past conversations, future emails, travel plans, and endless hypotheticals, usually involving me in some sort of confrontation in which I am rich in justification for my anger. I've sadly discovered that even when I am off fulfilling the dreams that I have manifested for myself, my mind is still a million miles away, self-creating a headache from the stress and anxiety of a thousand unreal scenarios. I'm sure it is some coping mechanism I have developed throughout a rather.. unideal and abusive childhood, but being in the present moment scares the shit out of me. Sitting down to meditate, to write a blog post, or to eat a meal with a friend without any kind of predetermined end time, literally have me in fight-or-flight mode (I'm sure the past decade of constant social media-ing also has some influence on my diversion of focusing...). I can tell you exactly what I was focusing on: This past month I was lucky enough to be a part of European Studies Association (ESA) that had nearly 100 of us, in all age ranges 17-70+, living in dorms in Paris, France; Taking french classes five days a week, and off on incredible, inspirational, educational adventures almost every day. And being a part of such a big group of people (something my life is often lacking, being a model is quite an anti-social existence in the 'real world') reminded me of something very funny and very innate about human nature... Yesterday I was shooting for 12 hours. I hadn't gotten much in the way of sleep for three days, and my cold seemed strong as ever. How truly tragic though would it be if I had missed out on my day exploring the monuments, forests, and sunflower fields of Kiev, Ukraine, where I am being paid for my time, my talent is appreciated, my photographic partner is collaborative, sweet, and professional, and is also helping me to document all of it to share in my upcoming, completely crowdfunded webseries, because of something as petty and insignificant as a friggen cold??Clearly, I'm far from perfect. And I looooove a good bitch sesh. Or at least, I did.. but I've been doing a lot of changing this year. Being in a group with 98 other people, switching between one whiney, petty conversation to the next, you start to feel the ugliness of it all. Why not be grateful to wake up and have fresh baguettes from around the corner that literally won best baguette of Paris, and are the same ones served to the president of France? Or commit yourself to the three hour class you paid to be at, and embrace the keep-up challenge of listening to a native french speaker? Or appreciate that while your roommate is an idiot, she's also very sweet and willing to listen and learn and have some sympathy for the environment she grew up in that has her so lacking in self-awareness? Or take the time at dinner to laugh at the cliche rudeness of your french waiter, have some compassion that he's serving 40 riotous, entitled American 20-somethings all by himself, and take the opportunity to get to know the person sitting next to you a little better? So here's to letting it all go, moving forward, and seeing the silver lining in every situation. Or, often more accurately, the big honking pot of gold that is your life just to be here, to be free to express, to create, to love, and to live.I decided to travel the world, spending most my time naked and traveling solo, creating art to inspire others, to express my own, fragile human nature, and to spend time with people, places, and things I never would have experienced otherwise.
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July 2017
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