Preface.

This reads like an unmasking. On the surface, or through the beginning phases of the read, it resembles a conversation that maybe has nothing at all to do with the meat and potatoes of this piece. I had read somewhere to begin each piece with the full course meal; I guess I preference spoon feeding to see if you will stay until you are full.

Also, I’m not very good at following rules in places where there aren’t any, really.

I think it reads to the complexity of character. The ways in which we present ourselves and beneath that the layers of who we are at our core, or where our baseline is or maybe it speaks to the duality of human nature.

We are both light and shadow, yin and yang, this or that. An id doesn’t mean that when one part of us is taking up space that it cancels out all the other parts of us, nor does it mean that partial representations are our whole character. Something I think this world could really use a reminder in when navigating the extremes we reach for without enough information.

We are complex, unique, some would even argue, divinely designed beings and many of us spent our whole lives silencing the parts of us that scare us or even make us feel ashamed of who we are.

This piece is realistically about self-acceptance, but also of the nature in which we hold ourselves back, a running theme, I guess, in the way that I write: this consistent battle with myself for anyone with eyes on me to witness.

Some of my time here has been spent curating versions of myself depending upon which eyes are looking, perhaps flaunting my feathers in a wide sprawl as though I would even need to do that to convince you of my opulence. The fucking endless imposter syndrome. Ends here, now.

But what if I had been bred on positive reinforcement? Maybe I would not have had to seek so much approval outside of self to feel like I matter? But then would I have tried as hard? Likely not. We can sit within the liminal stagnancy of what if for the duration of our lives or we can accept that whatever made us, created us with purpose and to never question our design. Who knows, maybe this was the exact path I chose because I knew I would love a challenge?

When you can reach a solemn sense of gratitude for everything that made you, even the things that broke you first, you are already one-hundred steps ahead in life. Never forget that.

I suppose tragedy lead me here, ultimately, I hung in the liminal for some time, understanding the impact of this week, following the eclipse of the new moon as it made its way into my sun sign.

I wish I could say that it is easy for we fawns to untangle ourselves from fawning, but then I also feel that the greater part of the battle might be understanding that you are fawn to begin with, and accepting it, with all your humility, and reminding yourself of it every step of the way.

I have built whole routines around doing basic shit that people who did not have my life path do with ease, and sometimes I have felt an unfairness surrounding that, like maybe I was given the short end of the stick and no matter how many times I try to match in, I will always end up short in the long run.

But, on the other hand, I could have lived a life always reaching for someone else’s stick to make mine whole, and I guess in some ways I have, just differently. Not in a way that is “let me take what you already have and make it mine to feel whole within myself”, but more so, let’s put our sticks together and become one big stick, rather than two halves.

The very interesting thing about meeting people on this journey is witnessing the ways in which our energetic imprint dances in unison even when we do not realize it. It is likely no wonder that I have found myself in far too many situations that drain me or that I become a willing participant to drain myself.

Even still, this also always comes with my forgetting that curiosity and interconnectedness is not a one-sided experience. I seem to witness these moments like they are diminishing elements of my character, but that would be a gross miscalculation of everything that has brought me here today, and my capacity to openly express it, regardless of the potential ramifications of living a life free of restricting my own internal dialogue.

It is common to keep our thoughts sacred to ourselves, considerably less common to pour open our souls, and let it spill out for pieces to be either picked up, tossed aside, or fragmented into stolen parts of our identity. In this way, I am the muse.

The only benefit of a woman who does not see her rarity when she is the anomaly is her standing in her own light, forgetting she’s the sun.

This piece is about that. And about chasing what I want, no matter how messy it looks. Especially if it looks messy. Because messy is raw, and messy is real.

/

I think I may like me better when I am not entangled with a man. Every time I come out of it, I get to look back at myself with a palm to the face like “Girl. Is you dumb?” Why do they do that to me? I’m a sucker, a total dweeb, a hopeless romantic, something terribly unnatural in today’s world, it would seem.

I should maybe postface this by saying that I am being only moderately serious with that last paragraph. I may be whimsy, imaginative, and have a feral mind but I am not stupid. This is not really a conversation on “love”; I would argue that what I want is something I have never actually had and so I cannot even say that were it presented to me I would even understand this is what I have been looking for.

To be fair, I would probably swat it off like a fly, pull out my metaphorical sword of protection and swing with full might. “ON GUARD! Back the fuck away from me you petulant heathen.” (Fight response. Trust issues. Shrug.)

So, it is all mostly in my head. It is also mostly a means to an end, a righteousness, like a being caught in a cobweb that keeps clinging to you that you cannot shake off. One told me once that I was an “emotional rollercoaster”. Eh, easy for you to say when you’re only experiencing me from the comfort of your own head, sir.

From now on, I will keep myself at bay. Putting myself in time out. A dunce hat, if you will. Locked up, chained away from the prying emotional security these vagabonds seek without proper reciprocal protocol. Takers. Taking. I know, I am a handful. How dare I request that you give back what you took from me?

Maybe now is a good time to mention that I can be very dramatic.

I connect with people from all over because of this big mouth of mine and my incessant need to share the plentiful thoughts inside my head that need somewhere to go. Dangerous, at times, because then the fleeting becomes permanent and I suppose it is hard to explain. You mean that you do not let your free thoughts fly? Shame, I would personally love to see what your unhinged, unfiltered, barely considered, random impulsivity would say.

Ah, God made me without a filter. No track from my brain to my mouth, just direct verbal hemorrhaging where meaning is buried somewhere in the bile of my mind and even I have yet to discover what I mean.

But I have examined this part of me, have considered all the weird thoughts that I just let take up permanency because were I to give myself the time to reconsider everything I say then I probably wouldn’t say anything at all. And that would be boring, so unfiltered it is.

This week has been a catalyst. Another catalyst, I should say. Have we not had enough of these? Nah, it’s just the cycle coming back around to smack me upside the head and remind that I know better. If only doing better wasn’t so much harder than knowing what to do, am I right?

If you want the truth, I will tell you a little secret. I called back my energy, I asked, out loud, from source or whatever powers there are that be, for a cord removal and then poof energy does what energy does. Fascinating. Or maybe it is just perspective perceiving. Who knows? Is it effective though? Um, yes. Very much so. Maybe next time I will be a little more specific, really, I just wanted to feel less drained. Hmm.

A young gun taught me this week that we have this one precious life that we know of. He, in his short time here, did more in his short life than most of us do in the duration of ours. He competed in an extreme setting that asked of him to risk his safety every time he stepped foot into his sport. He fought against himself, saw himself as his biggest challenge to overcome and continually spoke about self-improvement.

I did not know him, personally, but I know someone close to him who loved him dearly and so through this connection, I spent the week immersed in this kid’s life, watching old videos of him, listening to interviews and the genuine relationship he had with gratitude and community. Within this time, I have sat with the news of his passing while the community who knows him continues to send prayers for his recovery. Even as an outsider, that is such a difficult thing to witness; the loose ends of hope.

Even as I am writing this, his family has yet to disclose that he is no longer with us. And while none of them know me, or know about this blog, I am waiting to hit send on this until they’ve made the announcement. What mad respect to them as a family, for taking their time to grieve in peace without feeling like they owe anyone a thing. Even more profound is the respect being given to them among those who know for keeping that respect intact.

Speaks volumes of the close nit community these athletes compete within.

His death reminded me that I have lived 2.5 times the amount of life as he did and he lived more of it within that time frame than I have. I spent much of my life numb to even understanding what was good about it, spent a good portion of my life running from something, trying desperately to escape reality through as many avenues of escapism as I could find.

Then I threw myself into the deep end, I suppose just bored of the monotony of what chaos had become, just to see if I could swim back up to the surface washed of the person I used to be. Which like kudos to me for doing that, but I think I spent a considerable amount of time drowning in my own bullshit, treading in shallow waters unaware that at any point I could just stand up and get a move on.

“Wide open gratitude” is a sentence I saw I think a million times (perhaps a bit of an exaggeration) this week when I found myself with a whole new feed and a profound appreciation for extreme sports. On a video on his Instagram were the sentiments “Never give up. You only live once and never back down. Seize your moment, win your game of life, don’t procrastinate either, because that’s how you miss your chance, your only chance.” A quote from another fallen comrade who also lost her life to the sport.

These kids reminded me that there is no use wasting time, there is no use not following my passion, no matter how messy it may look sometimes. There are times when I get lost along the way and my writing becomes unspoken conversations, things that maybe I want to say but am uncertain if it is, at times, just my own mind working against me or the remnants of what it means to be a deeply passionate, and “dramatic” woman.

But then I remember the little girl in me, the spunky off-kilter kid who pretended her audience of stuffed animals were her adoring fans, and she was a famous singer named “Dani”. I remember the girl who was convinced that one day she would be a Dallas Cowboy’s Cheerleader.

Maybe if she hadn’t thought her award for “biggest ham” wasn’t an organization calling her fat as her peers snickered and understood that what it meant was that she had the biggest personality. Maybe if she had remained in dance, she would have went on to be a dancer or realized sooner that whatever it was, no matter the talent, if she set her mind to it, she would appear as a “natural” because she pours her heart into everything that means something to her or makes her feel alive.

Maybe if they had believed me instead of laughed at me and maybe if I had not allowed laughter, silence, or uncertainty to mold and shape me into the most easily contained version of me, I’d have gotten along much sooner.

Maybe if I had trusted myself sooner, I would not have perfected my ability to self-sabotage.

This week I fought with myself on starting over because I have had a longstanding relationship with wrapping my identity into others or feeling as though I must re-invent myself repeatedly as though all these messy parts of navigating life are not a part of me. I tend to want to disconnect from the parts of me that even if briefly, operate from old wounding, despite, apparently, refusing to give myself more credit.

The way in which I write about my experiences makes things seem so much more magnified than they truly are and I am blessed with having done enough work to be able to witness that it is actually an honor to know me intimately and maybe my issue hasn’t really been that I am my biggest problem, it’s been that my biggest problem is there are not enough people like me and the reason in which I have felt isolated on my journey is just the tragedy of seeking souls that move to the beat of the same drum.

I love who I am becoming, I love who I am, even. I love the path I took to get here even though it was messy, even though I stumbled all over myself, even though I laid down a few times over and let life ride over me like it is not a blessing to know me too. And all this fighting I have done in spaces that I should have walked away from a long time ago wasn’t really me seeking something in someone else that I did not already have on my own, it was an invitation… to walk in the sun with me.

The end.

xo — Crystal Danyel

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Underrated. Or overrated? Improperly rated? Something like that.

That seems to be the case, anyway. I have a consistent experience of being perceived as one way, usually a version of me that is not aligned with who I am, and then somewhere along the way that perception shifts and I am, often, given the sentiment of “I really thought you were ______.” and it is usually a very wrong assessment of my actual character.

I suppose maybe there are layers to me, and the presentation I put here is possibly the worst version of it, I guess, since it is almost always a negative belief replaced with a positive outcome.

Not sure what it is that I am doing to facilitate this phenomenon, but I can say … I must be doing it well. shrug

This is actually a real conundrum of mine that I have spent way too much brain power trying to figure out how to emphasize my own character in written dialogue when my written dialogue likes to swim to the farthest depth she can reach, well below the surface of her own presentation.

I suppose that’s probably why I am answering stupid questions about myself…

Other possible realities are that I just have imposter syndrome and this is all in my head.

What would you do if you had a million dollars?

Move immediately into the woods, somewhere where travel is not too far from the nearest town, but far enough away from people, preferably a bungalow or at least a home with a porch, not a big house, as the idea of having space to fill and more space to clean sounds like a worse hell than renting.

Set up a garden, with walkways, arches, a space for a wildflower patch, hang Edison lights everywhere imaginable, set up an outdoor tub, set up solar panels, buy chickens, thoroughly enjoy not having neighbors.

Document everything.

Give large sums of money to each of my children, pay back every penny my parents ever gave me during the seasons of life in which I needed their support the most.

What expectations do you have for yourself?

Self-dependency.

The second I begin walking myself down the paradigm of belief that says I cannot do ______, is the exact second I tend to recognize that I am bullying myself out of going after what I want.

I expect to always find my way back to self, even if I get lost along the way.

I consistently contend with the people pleaser within me, the part of me who wants to be liked and loses herself in over-explaining things that she would not have to explain were she being “valued” in the first place.

Sometimes the greatest gift we can give ourselves is to walk away from the environments in which we feel unseen, and I have become quite fond of my capacity to recognize when this is happening and reset my focus on my own goals, my own aspirations, my own likes, my own needs, and the people closest to me who consistently nourish the full spectrum of who I am as a woman, friend, mother, daughter, lover, etc.

What are your personal goals?

Um, by law of putting things that have not transpired into the realm of possibility we limit their ability to transcend into reality. So, telling you this would be an act of self-sabotage.

I guess you will just have to stick around to find out. wink

What is your dream vacation?

Traveling to Ecuador to experience a healing ritual by a curandera.

You know the ladies who smack you over the head with a bundle of herbs and wildflowers, rub an egg over you and spray oils in your face while praying over you and informing you what your cracked egg says you need healing with? Yeah. That.

Although, I would settle for a curandera within the states too. So, if you know of one, hit me up. It’s a bucket list item, so…

What is your favorite food?

Home grown tomatoes, of every variety, in any form, of any consistency, repeat indefinitely forever.

Cat or dog person?

Animal person, of all varieties.

I do not understand picking a favorite animal when they’re all so lovely. Except maybe polar bears and grizzly bears. Those things are terrifying. I would rather swim with sharks than ever risk the probability of encountering one of those bears.

So, I guess you could say, I would not, in fact, choose the bear… ever.

Describe your perfect date?

Uh, I think I would be okay with it just being with someone who genuinely likes me and is interested in me beyond the surface.

I really do not care where we are or what we’re doing and really do not think I am the sit down at a fancy restaurant type at all, I’d be cool with coffee and a walk, frankly.

You know it’s interesting, I have made this sentiment before actually and a woman told me that I undervalued myself and therefore I would only attract men who did not appreciate me.

I did not know so much was wrapped up in fine dining, but really, I think if he assumes character is superior based solely on that, then he’s probably not my type to begin with.

So, jokes on her.

What kind of music do you like?

Yes.

Is yes sufficient?

I like music, just, in general. I suppose my go-to would be some bluesy, raspy folk music. But I mean I also listen to old school rap, country, grunge, metal, pop… i music is a language in and of itself and it represents a multitude of personalities, plenty of which exist within us all, to limit myself of the experience by considering myself a connoisseur of something that expansive would be well… probably an indication of my own self-importance more than anything.

I did, however, used to do that, used to assume my taste in everything was somehow worthy enough of telling other people what they should/should not like.

Thankfully I grew out of my self-righteousness.

What has been the happiest event of your life?

Being on my own as a single mother.

It brought me into myself, or has allowed me to consistently step into myself, and back into motherhood in a way that the center of my world is not the way things feel, the environment we are in that suffocates expansion, the people who needed my attention in ways that asked me to abandon parts of myself, and the focus it has allowed me to hone the relationships with those who not only matter most to me but also love me without conditions, and I them.

It has provided me impenetrable connections with my children and my own self-worth, allows me to continually refocus into who and what matters most to me, who needs me the most, who appreciates my presence the most, who benefits the most from access to me and the impact I have on maintaining consistent growth within myself and consistent trust in the process, regardless of the setbacks that come up along the way.

This season, the one I am in currently, is the happiest season of my life thus far.

The season of handling everything without feeling like anyone owes me anything or feeling any sense of unfairness, but really the opposite reality, a sense of accomplishment, gratitude, maybe even some pride that, at the end of the day, I have created a sense of safety in our home where we all understand that a home is intended to be our safe-haven.

It has taught me discernment, a clear comprehension that whoever comes into our space with us will cultivate what we have built here and either match the vibe or expand upon what already exists or they’re simply just not invited.

Knowing, with certainty, that we will always move with grace, love, support, and a willingness to better our experience here has been the ultimate safety net.

I can only imagine being happier than I am now, and I look forward to when the time comes and it all makes sense why in this season, the only thing that mattered was this.

What 5 words would someone close to you use to describe you?

“Not afraid of uncomfortable truths.”

I realize that’s not what they meant, but I suppose people would probably say that I am an honest, compassionate, unwavering, creative, homebody.

Some people call me smart too, I suppose.

Do you believe in love at first sight?

No.

I think it is realistically impossible to know at first glance if someone is compatible in this department.

Especially for me, because I am often a sucker for rough looking exteriors and were we to read those at face value, we likely wouldn’t look beyond the cover… ya know?

Actually, the prettier the cover is, the less likely I want to read it.

So, there’s that.

I require context, in other words.

File under: Sapiosexual problems.

What is your most treasured possession and why?

I’m not a possessions kind of person.

I suppose maybe my journals? I have a vision that one day my daughter will really appreciate that she has those to look back on with when I am no longer in this meat suit.

Beyond that, I really cannot think of anything I own that I would be devastated were we to have to part ways with.

Things are very replaceable, for the most part. People, not so much, so maybe also the pictures of my grandparents.

What is your favorite holiday?

Halloween son.

Come on now, what kind of question is that?

Hey, now, speaking of possessions, I do have a little mini want of one day being able to transform my entire home for Halloween.

What is your biggest pet peeve?

Sweeping generalizations formed through not enough information.

Makes the internet sooo enjoyable.

Are there causes you strongly believe in?

I’m a fan of truth-seeking, does that count?

I don’t know, no I guess I am not particularly moved by many of the causes in existence.

I think I would really love to see a way in which there is a considerable amount of effort being put into the underbelly of society and the massive amounts of people we have suffering who do not have the proper resources available to them to help guide them through that life path.

I am very bothered by the imbalance of compassion for animals over people that exists within our society, I would personally rather see a person living on the street rehabilitated into society in a way that genuinely helps them navigate understanding how they got there vs. finding a stray dog a home.

Though, don’t get me wrong, I value the stray dog being cared for, nurtured, and given a good home, I just find the disconnect of our humanity and the ways in which certain echelons are treated to be, well, honestly, disgusting.

What are your hobbies?

You are reading my hobby right now.

I guess my hobby is being a documentarian to my core.

I make a living as a photographer, which albeit is not a hobby, it was once a hobby turned into a fully operational business so, I’m a very big fan of prioritizing our interests.

I spend a lot of time documenting life.

Writing, videos, pictures, etc.

What is your biggest accomplishment from this last year?

I saw a 17% increase in my business when my mindset shifted into impenetrable accountability for everything I was going through.

When I decided that everything was my responsibility to figure out, contend with, fix, improve upon, etc. everything changed.

So, I think my biggest accomplishment was getting very comfortable with holding myself accountable.

+

The end.

xo - Crystal

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Following this I, like the compliant subservient I am, acquiesced. For months I hung myself in a liminal space, caught between giving more of myself for the unchartered purpose laid out before me (one unbeknownst even to me), accepting that giving in to myself, writing for just me, was an act of selfishness.

Like here, take this one thing for yourself and give it to a man’s idea of who you ought to be Crystal. You can put it next to motherhood, providing for a family by yourself, and running a business as the only employee.

You’re simply not giving enough.

How dare I, as a barely surviving, single woman with trust issues for days and an over-active brain with a terrible relationship with her self-esteem not guide you to be more like me?

Poster child for influence, I’m sure.

Tonight, I guess, is the night in which I decided to contemplate why I let him tell me what I need to do, in general, let alone what I should be doing with my own creativity. I guess because I thought he cared? He didn’t. I also let him tell me that not doing trivial things like my nails meant that I did not take care of myself.

I just clipped my nails off so that I could write this without feeling annoyed by the uselessness of long nails. So that’s how I feel about that.

Don’t worry, contrary to popular belief, I actually do keep most things to myself, so I am not going to be any more specific than that. A million undocumented thoughts flood through this brain and never make their way to unsuspecting eyes.

They always think that I am going to go on some kind of rampage, writing in my little burn book like a personal diary of disappointments. No, it’s just sometimes there are things in my experiences outside of self that stick with me enough to contemplate my own relationship with validation enough that it is pertinent enough for my reflection.

This is not about you.

I am writing for… me.

I suppose it was last year sometimes I wrote about being a submissive woman and slid all the way down into the male centered dilemma without realizing that I am, in fact, very prone to finding myself in that position. It’s hard to tell sometimes, because I seem to do it whilst simultaneously kicking and screaming.

All this talk about “decentering” men and I thought that these women were just, well, honestly, entitled. You know the “why chase you when I’m the prize” type. But I concede, I think they may have been on to something.

I am more of cat, I think. Or, my cat, who is female, reminds me of how women operate, or how I, who am woman, operate.

They come to you at their own will, only if you call them, are intrigued when you dangle interesting things in their face but do not want to be touched unless you have permission to touch them and then you must continue giving them attention… when they want it.

Also, unless you are their favorite person, you can forget all the above and they’ll probably claw you.

Now, my cat has very good taste (I am biased) and has decided that I am her emotional support human. This is not to say that I do not have good taste, I have a very acquired palette, my favorite organ to taste is the mind, however sometimes, a lot of times, many times, several times, too many times, I have forgotten that I am also acquired taste.

However, a 5:30 AM shower, this weird lymphatic exercise I saw on Instagram (jumping around, flailing your arms about, I don’t know really what I am doing honestly, mostly I think I am entertaining my placebo’s confirmation bias), yoga and various other “things” in this day reminded me that maybe my issue these last four years is that I have not decentered enough.

Not just men, just this idea that it is my responsibility to take on so much burden to things only I am taking burden to. I think I could use to care less, in other words.

Frankly for some time I found the term “decenter” to be derogatory. This veil was lifted the other day watching a man debate a woman in which he thought that he could utilize manipulative tactics of burden-shifting to place blame on her for the fact that he had a poor relationship with accountability and I thought to myself “I think I really dislike men like this guy. Like a lot.”

And I realized that this ideology I had fallen into, not the traditional nonsense men like him often spew as though their way of life is the be-all-end-all of living life and the rest of us are just degenerate peasants, I am a self-employed single mother of three and I have always been the breadwinner in or out of a relationship, but this idea that so many men were suffering too and needed more sympathy was well… bullshit.

They are and they do, but… so are we and so do we.

We are all suffering. We are all being mistreated in some way.

Today, I thought about how if I say “No”, I must explain my no in a way that most men do not. I thought about how I am expected to have a high tolerance for things that I could not get away with and in unison I also acknowledged that I very well can get away with a tantrum, sometimes.

There is so much emotional security with women that we are expected to tolerate more than is tolerable from us. If I raise my voice, I am a tyrant, never mind that my voice is elevated because the first time I said it was not a sufficient number of times to be heard...

If I say no, my no is negotiated. “Are you sure? What if I do this, will it still be no? Have you considered reconsidering your no and making it yes, instead?”

Often times if a man says no, it’s just “okay.”

If a woman speaks up, she’s got an attitude, she’s a bitch… she’s difficult, you know?

Never mind that a passionate woman will love you six ways to Sunday. But I dye grass.

I realized the ways in which I must consistently push against the paradigm of expectation. The hierarchy of class, the idea of how I should behave as a woman and that this is realistically no different than the unrealistic expectations placed on men.

But in the same breath, I understood wholly why we feel repressed in our own emotions. That feeling things is bad and so we have to contend with over-feeling, or fear of feeling, or contending with the ways in which, after a certain age, everything we feel is multiplied times five-thousand and did I just write this whole post on my period and how will I feel when I am in ovulation?

Will I look back at this in shame, will I want to take this down because what if I whined too much? What if tomorrow I feel like “Oh, maybe that was just my hormones talking?” And forget that maybe the cycles are simply a magnifying glass into avoidance that become considerably more difficult to ignore during certain times of the month and oh my god, should I have told everyone on my period?

And the reality kicks in that I need to decenter everything, every idea of me that asks of me to mold myself into the way it preferences me. Every scolding of my authenticity, every time in which my voice raises or I finally stand against the foot on my neck telling me, telling us all, really, who we ought to be based on an entirely manufactured ideal, just whatever it is that will make us less disorderly, less of a nail sticking out like a sore thumb less we wish to feel the full brunt of the hammer head.

Maybe I need to be more self-centered.

fin.

xo – Crystal Danyel

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The truth is I have been highly motivated by collecting data recently. I noticed that it is very easy for me to explore the realm of creative expression or thought-provoking analysis and deep explorative dives into the human psyche in an attempt to understand the many lenses of perspective we operate under.

Just prior to this announcement, I was mapping out my own relationship with cyclical behavioral patterns.

I think over the last five years I have not had enough open seasons where entertaining something to feel a sense of connection hasn’t been prevalent in my life. Perhaps, in many ways, I have been using this as a distraction or a means of coping with the nature of being human or the things I would rather avoid contending with.

I have long since believed that we are pack animals, that we run in herds that vary by size, frequency, purpose, definition, etc. – much like hives. We have “our people” and we have those rare anomalies where our people stretch beyond the parallels that exist within our standard categories of connection, defying the odds of what it means to be a mirror or a kindred soul, where you feel a deep sense of purpose within the connection, but cannot always cultivate why.

Sometimes these souls exist within seasons, and sometimes they transcend time, becoming a part of our everyday way of life. Some are lessons we refuse to let go of, learn from, grow from, inviting us into the same cycle in a different body over and over until we witness the pattern for what it is and what it intends for us to learn from it.

I have a deep sense of understanding regarding the more cyclical patterns of nature, I believe that our approach will be the catalyst that uncovers the purpose behind all that we endured after we’ve met ourselves and begin to understand the imbalance of our approach and the ways in which we sacrifice time in place of uncertainty.

Meaning, the way we approach connection will be the very thing that heals us from repeating the same experiences we’ve endured in the past as soon as we begin to witness where within our approach we lean too heavily into self-sacrifice in order to feel love.

There is nothing inherently wrong with our approach, it’s just that our approach is not for all people, a mismatch in the alignment, and the nature of being human that craves curiosity, often over chemistry or loves to dance with avoidance without necessarily even realizing it.

And… how we behave when our approach backfires.

So, say you crave the chemistry, but you are peaked by curiosity, seeking chemistry where curiosity begins and ends in the same breath, never intending to alchemize beyond that and yet instead of witnessing it as misalignment, we seek the full circle moment, cycling through the same experience, expecting a different outcome that cannot transpire until we connect with the point within the cycle where when we witness we are repeating a pattern, we instead choose to stick it out.

And this is especially true if we are operating within pure intentions, kindness, love, compassion, etc. and begin learning that nothing that fits will require us to force it into place.

It’s a friction we find ourselves in often, yet do not always comprehend the why or what it is about ourselves we are avoiding that chooses to continue fueling the same cycles and expecting different outcomes in order to feel even the illusion of fulfilled.

Absence, of fulfillment within self, a sense of inadequacy somewhere in our life and we do not connect because that inadequacy is one-sided, because there is something within the friction that creates enough static for it to stick together. Mirroring.

We connect with purpose. This is why you can pass a thousand strangers and only find one who you’d be willing to swim in deeper waters with. Everyone we meet below the surface of life is met with an intended purpose, or that is how I have come to witness things through my lens of the world.

And then those cycles expand into what made us, tracing all the way back into our youth and the cycles within our developmental stages that created our idea of how connection is intended to operate even when we do not see it or want to see it or believe we have made choices that place us outside the confines of being a byproduct of environment, especially once we become aware that most of our experiences happen not by way of chance, but by choice.

Synchronicity happens by chance, or maybe it happens by paying attention, maybe the lessons have always been there, and we just continue to refuse to witness them, try our hardest to outrun them as opposed to facing what within self keeps us recycling the same experiences.

And yet, we are also provided countless experiences to unravel ourselves from circumstance and witness the roots that have been conditioned to keep the cycle going.

For instance, I have for many years had a relationship with holding on forever even when I know I ought to let go, while I often encounter people who believe nothing ever lasts.

I would imagine it is not a coincidence that I have placed these connections as a priority in my life while chasing the full circle moment that never comes.

Until I stopped.

In the beginning, it took me a lot longer to witness my own sense of limerence, even as I progressively disconnected with the nature of filling a void.

I really would say that I have only interacted with few people within this paradox beyond friends and family who checked the majority of my boxes without ever once giving me anxiety. And yet I still put connection on pause because I realized I was sliding into the cycle of sacrificing my time as a way to escape from the reality of the 3D world around me. Which was no fault of anyone but my own.

So, I put myself into buoyancy, to balance. Not because I felt anything negative. Truly, I did not feel mad or upset or angry or unimportant or unseen or unheard or misread or misinterpreted or any of those things, for the most part, I felt the opposite of that. But I also understood that what I want to unfold in my life in any space cannot transpire if the unchecked boxes within my own relationship with self are not first met, and while I could go ten toes in with understanding behavior as it exists within the mind, this comprehension was also the very thing that forced me to witness the human mind’s capacity to avoid work that needs done in place of gratifying dopamine.

This came following my unintentional move to begin examining the world around me, rather than the ways in which I escaped those realities. I had been feeling like I so desperately wanted a change in atmosphere, but I wanted it to just come to me, I guess, like the heavens opening up and that thing we call a “miracle” to unfold before me like a gift for all my hard work without doing the actual work necessary to receive it.

I had done mental work. I could run whole marathons inside my head, in a matter of seconds, to configure complex thought. But my relationship with the physical world? Not so much.

When we begin asking for guidance and actively participating in the surrender “synchronicity” is presented to us at the right time, in the right moments, inviting us to explore our relationship with change or reminding us that we are on the right path, or maybe even (if you lean woo woo) as the blueprints necessary for the very thing we’ve been asking for.

I saw a reel of a woman eating one sausage, one egg, cottage cheese and a feast of vegetables. Despite my struggles with body image, I have never honestly been a bulk eater. I had seen this woman’s reels maybe a dozen times in the last few years and always dismissed them when they came up, found it unrealistic and unsustainable and… a lot of food.

However, I did not understand macros. It’s not that I had not heard the word before or had a loose understanding of what it means, it’s just that I did not grasp how they worked because I have a terrible tendency to avoid what seems boring to try to understand.

But for whatever reason, I decided to try it. This part was really only half the battle, because trying it means diddly if we do not understand the why behind it. The most important element is that my favorite food groups have always been meat and vegetables, even as a little girl. My favorite meals were vegetable soup, steak, and every kind of tomato known to man because in my opinion, there is nothing better than a good tomato.

The part that mattered is I thought it was a lot of food, so I plugged it into ChatGPT and asked for the breakdown of the meal in calories and nutrients.

363 calories.

And I liked it and did not feel I was depriving myself at all, if anything I felt I was fulfilling the very thing I needed to understand how macros work.

(I’m getting to the declaration of anti-cellphone use, I promise.)

For weeks leading up to this, I had been actively purging my environment without really deciding to, spending a couple days out of the week just cleaning and throwing out things that had been collecting dust or seemed useless for me to keep. So, I have been, in a since, actively in the energy of purging.

And keeping within the momentum of assessing the 3D world around me, and my relationship with it, I decided to pull data yesterday morning while journaling. Whatever transpired in that very moment led me to analyze time and how it was being spent. So, I pulled open the activity tracker on my phone to see how much time I had given to my phone last week.

75 hours of my week had been dedicated to being on my phone. Even subtracting my time spent on YouTube, which was mostly spent while I was working or doing something around the house, that could only account for 19 hours of my time, the rest was spent primarily on social media and text messaging.

There are 168 hours a week. If you average 8 hours of sleep a night, that is 56 hours spent sleeping. This means that there were only 37 hours in my week when I was not on my phone.

And honestly, I calculated this on my own because I did not realize the total screen time was listed on the app itself and so it was actually even more than that, but for the sake of what I knew at the time, even 75 felt like too much, anything more than that was beyond too much.

So, I did not write the post as a farewell or one of those pinky in the air protests where give it a week and I’ll be back into the full swing of my addiction to the little 5 x 3 rectangle in my hands, but with the intent to encourage everyone else to also dissect how their time is being spent and what they could do in that time if they decreased cell phone usage.

I have zero intention of leaving social media, or completely disengaging, I know that is unrealistic and I have been chronically online really since 1996, so it is a way of life in this century, but I do intend to check my relationship with escapism, in particular.

Yesterday I put my phone down and only picked it up with intention. I did use it in my down time for entertainment, but instead of doom scrolling, I reached out to a friend who runs a homestead in rural Iowa to check in and used that time to get caught up on the videos her and her husband post on YouTube sharing their experience as first time homesteaders.

Beyond that, I was more productive yesterday in prioritizing the things I need to get done than I have been in weeks. I’ll spare you a list because it’s boring and relevant likely only to me, but the point is I used my time to make my environment more comfortable rather than avoid the things in my environment that cause’ me discomfort.

So, I suppose the overarching message here is to get present with ourselves and witness ourselves in our entirety as a balanced whole as opposed to placing a magnifying glass on the parts of us that perhaps provide more comfort to dissect while neglecting the things we’d rather not contend with.

… And check your analytics.

That’s all.
Happy Tuesday.

xo - Crystal Danyel | heycrystaldanyel

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I wrote this when I was nineteen. I was sitting outside at night, under the stars and I had these big dreams of moving on. I was already moved on from the situation I was in, at least inside my head. I was terrible, no good and it seemed that my cycle throughout life would be paying for my poor decision making, only I did not quite understand that yet.

I had mapped out a whole plan in which I, in my infinite (or infantile) wisdom, was certain I could narrowly escape the consequence of karma. Not even sure I was fully aware of karma by then, though I had come to understand the nature of opposition, a.k.a. trying our best not to be like that which raised us, only failing to understand how deeply embedded our genetic coding really is.

Every plan I had was derailed by circumstance and consequence, and I was heavily motivated…

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Unless alchemy has the room to grow within the connection, which typically involves a mutually agreed upon decision to work together with honesty, transparency, compassion, etc. those areas of misalignment tend to infiltrate the whole system like a poison, rotting the threads that bind us from the inside out, allowing things like resentment, animosity, and fear to form in place of care, consideration or whatever remnants remain of longevity the connection may have once had.

These days, I take what is presented to me a…

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Everyone wants a quick path to success. So, they “buy the ticket, take the ride” (thank you HST). And then typically end up exactly where they left off because embodying any system includes a pathway to unraveling the systems that are already working against you and, as it turns out, this is not easy to do. (This is actually what we’re here to talk about today, unraveling systems, but I must dilly before I can dally.)

It is easier to buy a program someone is selling you about how they did it, than it is to actually do it.

But I dye grass.

I’m in a great mood if you’re curious. I am also in the…

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This year feels pivotal. Monumental. Like the beginning of a collapse, where old paradigms will no longer be able to breathe into this space without us first asking questions before we decide whether what is being presented to us is real or illusion.

We will move in ways that honor our individual sovereignty, choosing to step outside of the containment, or the confined ways in which this system has encouraged our oppressed state of mind.

We won’t be able to sit with the containment of it much longer without having to face ourselves and asking ourselves if we are truly living our time here as “authentic” versions of ourselves or if we are we byproducts to conditioning none of us fully understand and yet can feel deep within us as a truth.

You are holding yourself back by not doing what you really want to do. By not choosing what you truly want, without asking yourself whether everyone will agree with you, or whether the world will judge you.

So many of us choose what…

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They were talking about me and one of them said, “She was gone for a while, but now she’s back.”

I found that interesting because I really do feel like I was put on pause for a moment to go back into a specific behavior, witness myself in it, and determine if I had indeed learned what I was intended to learn.

Whoops.

I do not know whether or not I failed. But that was very unfair to drop a very alluring carrot in my face.

You are very sneaky, life. I squint my eyes at you. And bite my thumb, for good measure.

Ahem.

It showed me that I could lose all of my boundaries if I liked something bad enough.

It taught me I have the capacity to lose myself in the “wrong” person.

Are they the wrong person though if you learn a part of yourself that no longe…

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“Oh Crystal, just quit whining. It’s a fact of life. We all must suffer, don’t you know? What makes you think you’re so special?”

I don’t know what makes you think you’re so un-special? You are special.

That’s true. I have been doing that. I’ll tell you what, you pop out of your own body several times over in the middle of sleeping and you’ll start wondering what it is going on around here too. You can walk by a streetlight, any streetlight, anywhere, and I guarantee you it will turn off around certain people, every time. Wh…

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Lately I have been feeling as though I am on the outside of this system looking in on it. I know that is not an accurate assessment, but on a fundamental level it certainly feels that way. It is beyond just not “wanting to” be a part of it, it is feeling as though I am just not a part of it.

It’s like I witness these moments in our culture, and I am more confused by the response than I am aligned to one side or the other.

Take the Super Bowl for instance. I thought the half time show was kind of weird. I did not watch the super bowl, but I did Google the half time performance to better understand what the “hype” was all about. And I thought, is this where we are – that we cannot say we found something strange without it being politically motivating? I found it strange. I did not find the message strange, I understood the point and I also find it a little strange that Americans need to be reminded that Puerto Rico is a part of America. Actually, that part is less s…

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I suppose this means I must contend with the unraveling uncovered throughout the last seven days, in the dead of winter, with nothing to do, nowhere to go (I wanna be sedated). It feels like winter, for me, is always a process of falling backward in order to catapult forward. Apparently, we are all preparing for this somewhat cataclysmic shift into forward momentum as we approach the year of the Horse, or, as I have heard it called, “The Year of the Fire Horse.” Seductive.

Yes, I am well overdue for my Fire Horse year, sign me up. I have been heavily contending with my own Lilith in Aries, who is desperately fighting against the desire to take a torch to every bridge connecting her to paths leading nowhere. Maybe stick some marshmallows on the end of a stick until they develop a thin crisp layer verging on becoming a black char crust (the only way, in my opinion, to eat a marshmallow) and savor the sweet memory of watching it all burn down. Quite a dramatic one, she is. I a…

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Come, stay a while. And in no time you can brand yourself with your own flavor of narcissism too. We’ll get the rod hot, you just give us a pound of your flesh. Can’t tell her you’re just not that into her? Narcissist. Ghosted without properly communicating? Narcissist. Chose fear instead of the truth? Narcissist. Discussed your pain openly? Narcissist. Feel alone in the world? Narcissist. Unhealed wounds? Narcissist. Byproduct of living in a system spoon-feeding manipulation for breakfast like a prize at the bottom of your box of Cracker Jacks?

Wait. What?

No, why, this is not narcissism. Why are you looking at us? No, look over there — did you see they’re bombing someone? We’re not the manipulators. No, it’s all of you and your poor relationships with one another. It’s you and your selfish, greedy, no-good behavior that made you a narcissist. It wasn’t us controlling the algorithm. Say, did you want to talk about…

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Hang on.

Let me grab my soap box.
I have something to say. ahem

Fat shaming is telling the world that you also have a poor relationship with yourself, just in a different way.

I want you to feel the sting of that sentence, because I have felt the sting of yours. That is the honest exchange here. People are far too comfortable tossing commentary at bodies they do not inhabit, as if those bodies are merely ideas, as if a person is not inside them, as if every critique you think you are making about someone’s appearance does not immediately become a critique about their worth, their discipline, their desirability, their intelligence, their validity as a human being who deserves to be treated gently. You can call it honesty, you can call it concern, you can call it health, you can call it preference, you can call it a joke, you can call it motivation. You can call it whatever helps you sleep at night. The body hears it the same way.

And I want you to hear your…

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I have decided we need more structure.

Let us all give our collective gasp. Gasp.

Sometimes I feel as though I just send my every little thought into the void, without really considering what I have said, how I have said it, who it may impact, etc. My vagueness has a way of intertwining my life events with my writing in a way that makes things that are not interconnected seem connected, even when they are not. Which I understand is not really a less “vague” way of saying that things in my personal life may seem connected to what I am writing and, to be fair, often they are. But there are also things I say or write that are about something completely unrelated to an event, yet they may seem connected to those who have more insight than the average reader.

I really ought to get out of the headspace of over-explaining myself, but like… is that not what writers do? Over-explain things? Another duality within this existence, I guess.

I devote a substantial amount of my time to working …

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With the motivation to write.
1.16.26.
A conversation on “authenticity,” or, as I like to call it, “lying is really gross, lying I hate the most.” which begs the question: “What is truth?”

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Maybe I shouldn’t do this, but it feels like if I don’t, I might implode.

Today was a rollercoaster. Some days are harder than others, and for whatever reason, I believe I am not allowed to feel it when it is hard. I put on a brave face. I pretend nothing is bothering me. I act unbothered, like everything is fine. I do not want to give anyone the power to say, “Look at her, of course she’s unhappy in her situation.” It eats at my pride. And yet I know that tomorrow will be better. There will always be days when I feel it heavier than others.

I stopped talking about the things that hurt me. I began dissociating from the feelings because I felt like any discomfort I experienced was giving someone else power over me. Why would anyone feel proud of themselves for harming someone else? You would have to be a special kind of cruel to deliberately hurt someone who did nothing to you and then feel a sense of accomplishment from it.

I am still trying to get a grip on the emotions I feel today bec…

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