Subconscious, Dreams & Me

Happy Friday readers ! I hope you all had an excellent weekend filled to the brim with your goals and dreams. Glad to have you back here.

Speaking of dreams let’s jump right into it. First let me just make sure we all know I’m not just talking about dreams that mean nothing or had no feeling. I’m talking about those dreams that have you waking up and rethinking life choices or have you intently focused on your future. Ones that have such deep emotions it leaves you wondering exactly what’s going on inside your head.

I’m pretty sure we have all had at least one dream that has led us to doing research in about what the “signs” mean. Not the average things like dreaming about fish or having one of those dreams where you’re falling or even why we can never seem to punch harder than a baby in our dreams. I’m talking about very physical and emotional vivid dreams. As an addict in recovery I’m sure one person can relate to the vividness of a “drug dream”. For all my none addicts try thinking back to your school days, falling asleep at your desk and falling in your dream; it’s so vivid that you literally jump out of your sleep most likely startling those around you.

Now that we are perfectly clear, allow me to explain my personal situation. Full disclosure due to my forgetfulness and I suppose lack of priority, I have been off my mental health medication this weekend. I didn’t exactly sleep peacefully, deeply and I believe I might have been up and down for a quarter of the night. I experienced a very emotionally vivid dream which at this point may be a reoccurring dream. This is the second time I’ve had this particular dream. Just a vivid the only difference was instead of the second act in the dream it seemed to replay the beginning. Not identically like deja vu, but it seem as if my subconscious wanted me to pay more attention to the small details.

The human mind is a very complex, complicated and I think one my least understood organ of the human body. Sleep in itself is weird. Not dead of course but somewhat not alive I suppose. All of our homeostasis systems are still very much active. Like we breathe while we are sleeping and most certainly can hear things it just doesn’t register like it would of we were awake. Then we have crazy things like sleep paralysis. Scientist believe dreams are our brain’s way of dealing with things we have experienced. Trauma, pain things we don’t fully understand. So our brain doesn’t ever really rest.

So to be specific I had a dream that included my adoptive parent, siblings and 2 other relatives. More in depth there was a very strong emotion of anger almost rage that consciously I don’t feel. Even now I don’t feel the same as I did in my dream. To be transparent I have been avoiding the parent and a very deep conversation we need to have. Being physically, mentally and verbally abused by her as a child it’s not far fetched as an adult I would have these type dreams but honestly I thought I had forgave her and moved on from the trauma. Apparently not, and do we ever really recover from trauma, or do we just learn to deal with it in a more healthy way?

Being the second time that I had this exact dream I know paid closer attention to it in it’s entirety and to the small details I may have missed the first time. My subconscious is trying to make sense of the trauma and the disconnect from it that I’m assuming I have mistaken for healing or being over it. Our brain is funny in that way, we have little to no control of our thoughts and even less over our subconsciousness. Pretty ironic in the sense that it literally controls everything, from our breathing to our reactions to our emotions.

If I could leave you with anything today it would be to pay attention to your dreams and even more close attention to the feelings and emotions you experience in the dream realm. We have little actual communication between ourselves and our brain or cognitive thinking. The least we could do is pay attention, right? Thanks for listening my readers. Meet you right back here tomorrow morning. Enjoy your day!

-K

Coming Out of Retirement

To set rumors aside I did not contract the Corona virus. As per usual I abruptly took time off to get her myself and recharge; in doing so, I have evolved. So no, I am not the same person. Same man. Or have the same energy I once had before. I am more than proud to say that statement.

There is a lot I could not down in this blog but something is telling me that others (visitors and newbies) could use some insight.

Now if you know me personally of have been stumbling across my blogs about my more personal side then you know i stopped following organized religion long ago and in my early 20s I realized I was or wanted to be in touch with my spiritual side.

Well early May was the time I decided to put my money where my mouth was. Like most revelations of any kind it started off slow and for the most part unnoticed and then quickly, suddenly and finally all at once.

Slowly I came to care more about our planet as well as other animals and living creatures. The normal small steps one would take on a path to enlightenment I suppose. Recycling. Growing things from the earth. Putting things back into the earth. Caring. Loving. Growing. Because of my stubbornness and probably due to my strong headedness as a earth sign I had to be pushed into change. It took alot and it hurt… A lot. I realized where I was and where I could have been and it made me extremely thankful for the change and the pain. Hindsight is really 20/20 , always after the fact though. Which is it’s definition .

I’m not going to get into detail in exactly what happened. What I saw or what I had to go through here on my blog but I might do a podcast about it at some point. Just the moral of the story: stay woke.

Making Hard Decisions

Ahh the dreaded decision.. I say that because normally any decision I have to make causes me quite a bit of stress and anxiety. Not as much as it used to, its something I have been working on recently through therapy and groups. So for normal people let’s talk about decisions that would be harder than most. For instance; leaving or starting a new job, starting a family, moving across the country or (for some) out of state, dating or breaking up with someone, who to vote for etc.

What makes these decision so hard? Most of the times for a lot of people it is the judgement from other because of the decisions. For more anxious people it can be the idea that the decision made was not the right or the best one. Some might even shy away from making a decision because of whom it could effect, those people may be slightly on the anxious side as well.

So skip to the good part, how do I make these decisions easier. Well let’s calm down and put it in a better perspective. First lets find exactly what makes these decisions so hard in the first place. Are you one who really fears the unknown? Worried if it was the right decision and what could be if you choose a different decision. Are you more concerned who may be affected by your choice? Worried that you may hurt someone you care about. No matter what or why the decision is so hard; first remember, its probably not as bad as you think it is. Think of it like brushing your teeth or combing your hair. The thing about cleaning and maintaining is its not such a big decision that you might die.

So, did that really make making hard decisions any easier? Probably not. But that’s the beauty in having hard decisions to make in the first place.

Its the weekend because of everything that is going on I am basically stuck in the house all weekend so excuse me for being totally mentally drained that I can barely come up with a 400 word post… In the meantime here is some funny video that I found on the internet looking for some comical relief in these troubling times. Hope you enjoy and try to deter cabin fever a little while longer if you can…

Daily doses of internet.

• One
• Two
• Three

People falling. Here, here and here

And in case you haven’t heard the “Corona Virus Anthem” by Cardi B, here are some of the remixes I found online. Warning, its catchy and may get stuck in your head.

Stay safe.

Laughs & Love.

 

 

Finally Seeking Professional Help

Well readers, I am taking a very big step this coming Monday…. I am going to seek professional help for my mental problems and drug abuse.  Abuse is in italic because I am not physical depended on any drugs but I do self medicate with drugs and I seek out drugs especially during manic and depressive phases even though I know its not healthy and its something I immediately regret. I am not ashamed of it as I have mentioned my battles in my blog and on my facebook lives (when I was on facebook anyways). But I never really sought out professional help or even really admitted that I need help and this a problem I can’t just solve with some magical self help book. Even though I have tried several times. I share a lot here on my blogs with my readers with out much of a filter but often time I was turning to facebook to just express my struggles. Usually through a random live that I would delete pretty soon after.

I guess I figure venting randomly on facebook and other platform was helping in some way but I was ignoring the fact that it wasn’t really helping and I was only becoming more and more isolated and just ignoring the underlying problem that I was really suffering from. I pretty sure if I am in fact diagnosed with PPD now I did it to myself by keeping so much and and basically holding a grudge with myself. I blamed my self when people I trusted let me down. And gradually no longer trusted myself to be able to really spot the difference of those that truly wanted to help me and the few people that was only looking out for themselves. But outward I just expressed it as all humans are trash and that everyone is naturally out to get me. Looking deeper into it all its all stemming from my incapability to really focus think things though and make good life choices. I have come to a point that I normalize all the self destructive thought and actions I was doing and because I was still pretty much still a functioning member of society. When in reality I was living in a town for almost 2 years and hadn’t gone further than a 5 block radius the entire time and I didn’t have proper identification for almost 3 years now.

This realization came after a very disturbing manic episodes that led me to hurting some one I deeply care about and deeply cares about me when all they were trying to do was help me not only realize I have a problem. Which is exactly what I have been running from and avoiding for quite some time now. My first breaking point when I should have sought out professional help was of course after my 2 separate suicide attempts that were either in the same week or definitely  within the same month, its hard to really recall but it was most like less than 2 weeks apart from one attempt to the other. At this point I can’t really remember which I did first; attempting to slit my wrist open or trying to overdose on pills. I don’t think I time frame or which came first is really that important or relevant. The second time was attempting to have a “death by cop” situation that ultimately landed me in jail for few days amongst other things. The 3rd time was a very apparently mental breakdown with severe depression. I originally was supposed to check myself into a mental health hospital but of course I backed out of that as well.

I realized I had given up on my self and having a happy life quite some time ago being completely honest I wouldn’t be surprised if it started somewhere in my childhood and got progressively worse as I aged and came to a boil once I reached to adulthood. And only continued to get worse my more I ignored it. Hence me now showing signs of paranoid personality disorder more recently. Even if this is going to a life long process; as in something I have to maintain for the rest of my life (which is something I always feared), I believe I care about myself enough now to try it and face the fact that I may be the sole cause of it progressing to such a state because I refused to acknowledge the problem for so many years.

I have so many conflicts thoughts in my head about almost everything its not really a shock to me that its taken me this long to do something about my issues. But I am extremely proud of my self for finally taking the first step in the right direction.

Again I appreciate the support from all of my readers, followers and visitors I am apologizing now because I not sure if this blog will be going on hiatus or for how long is it does but I will return at some point and hopefully come back stronger than ever, even in my blogs. As always thanks for reading.

This is Kristian Iman King, signing off for now…

Taking a break from Mary Jane

Yes, yes its true. I have made the conscious decision to slow down and maybe eventually stop my intake of marijuana and all of its chemical properties; i.e THC, CBD etc. In attempts to regain my focus and find a little more motivation than I’ve had lately even for the simplest daily task like fixing breakfast or taking a shower.

Now this experiment could go either way as the hypothesis is unclear and considering my current life space including the urge to get my entire life together before 30. I was never consider weed to be “self medication”, more so a crutch to deal with my social anxiety. However I did start indulging in the wonders of THC in my early teens and regular smoked since my 20s.

I can honestly say I don’t smoke as much as I was on a daily basis 2 to 3 years ago. So the goal now is to limit it to morning and nights & including any occasions outside of the home. I’ve also put a “under extreme tense situations” clause in the self promise, to give me some breathing room and because I know myself.

Also will have to find other things to keep me occupied, so that could mean more interesting blogs in the future.

No worries my fellow pot head and weed enthusiasts I will never stop fighting #legalizeit and this is only because I need to be fully engaged to the life moves and auto pilot isn’t the best way for me to go right now.

There’s nothing like a good wake and bake bowl to start your day or a fatty J to end a productive and positive night I just need to be focused throughout the day because I kinda got some important shit to do.. ya feel me.

 

smoke one for me too….

 

Well, its been a long hiatus

Hello my readers, first I want to say thank you keeping this blog alive with views and inquiries while I was away; taking some time off to deal with life. I was not fully prepared to make a come-back just yet but I do feel like when I blog I can drift into my thoughts and let my fingers go on auto pilot and kinda shut the world away.

I will try my best to DAILY, that’s right daily, blog post from now up until Christmas. I will try my best. In hopes of keeping to my schedule I will post in the mornings with either a topic given to me by my readers or things I watch on news mostly. As usual I’ll probably drift off topic and end up with some randomness but if ain’t broke don’t fix it. If you’re a return reader then you already know these blogs can go. Hopefully I can eventually get back on track and have a series with dedicated topics, we can all only be so hopefull.

So if you are a new reader of just someone passing through I appreciate your interest and welcome to my blog. I invite to read some of my past blog entries to get a feel on who am and what I normally write about.

Recent news that caught my eye is the fact that Tom Joyner is retiring from radio after half a century and in his time on the radio he has donated over 60 million to historical black colleges. No surprise that his successor is Ricky Smiley, he’s not TJ but he’s not bad. In an interview he said the main reason he was retiring was because of the cut in his salary. We lost a great in the radio world this week. I wish him all the success.

Also, apparently 5 star hotel are seeing an increase in theft of mattresses. Yes, whole mattresses. I personally feel if your stealing a mattress from a hotel, I wouldn’t care how many stars, you must really need the mattress. 4 star hotels are seeing the same kind of increase with theft of the televisions out of the room. I haven’t stayed in too many 5 or 4 star hotels. But maybe they should take a clue from the 3 and under chains and start bolting everything down. Is this a sign the economy is going to shit?

I’m not into celebrity news or gossip but I saw something about the old Destiny’s Child group, Jagged Edge and the DC manager (at the time) Matthew Knowles. I could really repeat what I saw on the Wendy Williams show or what I saw from the Youtube vloggers but a google search for those who haven’t heard but are interested would probably give more accurate and details news. So I’ll stick to what I know.

Concerning my personal life, the man behind the blog, I haven’t yet read up on my old blogs to see exactly where we left off. I’ll make sure to bring everyone up to speed at some point, I can honestly say that I now feel a little more at peace with life, love and happiness and I have yet again grown and evolved into a better form of my prior self.

Well thanks for reading everyone, glad you stopped by. As my Aunt Gerry would have said, “I’ll yack atcha lata”.

 

 

Hard work pays off

..  or I just have really good luck

Either way life has been going good. Recall me blogging about abruptly losing one job back in December (a week before christmas) then I got hired 3 days later and starting working a week later. Well things have come a long way since then.

This dish washing job was what I thought was just something that would keep me afloat untill I either won the lottery or figured out life. However it quickly turned into something great. Of course I was putting in an enormous amount of hard work and effort into it. Because this was the only thing I had at the time to keep me from sinking.

Originally hired as “kitchen help” I learned a new skill as far as cooking; 😋 now I know how to toss dough, 😏 been tossing salads for a while now tho. Of course me being my own worst critic and never ever having tossed dough let alone do anything else with a pizza besides either order, put it in the over or eat it. I quickly got frustrated a seized the opportunity to quietly maneuver to busboy/dishwasher. 

“Like always pot brings people together.”

Just so happen that the current dishwasher wasn’t thrilled about coming to work. Probably a college kid just look to have something to do sometimes a a small paycheck. So soon it went from picking up his shifts, to; “you’re the only dishwasher”. Seems like a miniscule job, one the someone would not desire. Nope. Not me. Doing pretty much mindless one task labor for a decent amount is fine with me. Can’t go to work stoned of you’re an accountant or a brain surgeon. Think about.

Still, the “decent” amount of money wasn’t really making me smile on paydays exactly. So I worked a little harder. Picked up extra deep cleaning shifts. Made my schedule completely flexible. Stood out there. Went above and beyond. Showed up and showed out. At first I felt like I wasn’t being taken seriously then *boom* I came in the clutch. Earned some respect, recognition and not to mention hours and money.

And now. .    it was time for my demands. I started asking around; who does what & why and how long before I can start to do that??? Still seemed like I wasn’t getting the results I wanted so I snatch my chance like women snatch they edges. 

Made the leap from dish to expo. When they needed a hand I was there. Slowly at first then a little more confident and a lot less mistakes. Still, effort for no movement. But I was waiting on a raise from my MVP moment so I was content and enjoy the switch from dish to expo at my leisure. Since my title was still dish but also liked to lend a hand and give my brain different task.

“Some have greatness thrust apon them”

The light at the beginning of the tunnel. A morning chef was calling it quits and enough faith had already been proven from my part that the position was mine. It came as more of a question than a statement. However, I was still being called for those hail Mary plays and, well my arm was getting tired. And let’s not forget IMAN IS NOT A MORNING PERSON. So now I’m starting to think this isn’t really the tunnel I want.

Originally reluctantly I had to speak up that I was getting burned out with working my normal nights , then detailed mornings. Much less reluctant when me mentioning another raise got brushed off like a snow flurry. Whilst asking me to do additional mornings for training. Still waiting for a raise. Not to mention on top of insomnia and my sleep pattern officially going to shit around that time.

Still I rise, tho. Keep working hard, giving 109% and most importantly having a flexible work availability schedule. Immediately after dropping the details to focus on morning trainings. Things get switched again. And not only do I keep my nights instead of having to train in the mornings (at open btw) but a closing manager position opens up and my training started the following shift, which happened to be that same night. Plus I am currently working at my new wages 💯

Present day:

Working 2 weeks straight putting in extra time and effort into my training and once again proving that I am that MVP. Already 2 weeks into to the 6 of +40hrs/week you need to qualify for full time benefits. Hopefully here after my training it will simmer down and I can work a set schedule 40 and can go back to having a normal life.

Thanks for stopping by

I don’t know if it was hard work, because I’ve put in hard work before and got nothing. But I’ve literally have done no work not even fake work and been lucky. So maybe this time it’s a little bit of both 👌🏾

What’s Iman’s religious beliefs?

Sure,  for those who don’t know; let’s change that. 

So I was baptized and raised in a Catholic home. Went to Catholic School. Catholic Church. Bible study. First Communion. Catechism. The whole sha-bang. 

Even at a young age, 7ish ;I wasn’t really “sold” on the whole ideology of Christianity and Jesus Christ. So I began to question it, but only to myself. Up until about age 11 I still blessed my food, and said my prayers when instructed but other than that I just wasn’t with it.

After the devastation my family, my city and my self felt from the wrath of the the flood waters following hurricane Katrina; on top of losing my grandmother my faith in “God” was completely gone. After praying and praying that she would be found safe and alive then one day after school being told she was found dead in her home I started to hate “God” and just about everything Christianity stood for. I soon found it was easier to dismiss that “God” really exsisted instead of having so much hate toward someone I wasn’t even sure was real in the first place. 

Between ages 15-17 I had dismissed any religious beliefs that were taught to me but it wasn’t until about age 22 when I had the urge to seek out something to believe or have faith in. Around this time now being an adult I was free to explore different religions and soon found myself at a Muslim errr umm.. church (pretty sure that’s the wrong word, sorry) I didn’t agree with all of their views and eventually we hit an ice breaker. 

“Any type of organized religion,.. religion, period isn’t really for me.”

So I decided to revisit an bootleg DVD a found at my mother’s house titled “The Secret” and gave the ideology of the law of attraction a second thought. So it was this time; around 2013 that I labeled myself a spiritual person instead of a religious one.
And so well that’s where I’ve been since. I don’t knock anyone’s religion. I just rather just chill.

“You either are a good person or you aren’t, ya know; and I try to be a good person.”

So now everyone knows 😊.

Smoke and be happy