Tag Archives: Conscious

The Moment my Mood Took Over

Happy Monday! I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting lately, and one topic that has been top of mind is improving this blog by actually pointing out my douchey traits and how I can learn from them. After all, the point of me even writing, IS to expose these qualities in myself that need changed, not glamorize them. 

So let’s start with an instance from this past week… It was my last day of work before a 5 day leave from the office. I was so excited for my break from work, but I also knew I had a lot to get done before I left. The old me would have half assed the day and said, “oh well”, “pay me more”, or, “not my problem.” However, I’m trying to be different, so even though I may not enjoy my job, I still wanted to try and do my personal best. So I knew I had to kick it into gear!  

My day started at 8:40am with a conference call lasting until about 12pm. I then had about 2 hours to gather training materials for three different new hires and started on training plans for each of them. At 2pm I had to teach a new hire orientation, which lasted until about 4:30 where I got pulled by my supervisor to handle some markdowns from my department that didn’t get completed. I then spent the next hour and a half taking care of all markdowns. At this point, I had to cancel my dinner plans, and I told myself that I would be there until close. I was proud of myself because I kept my attitude at bay, and tried to stay positive throughout each new hurdle.  

Fast forward to 8:15pm and I’m finally walking out of work and headed home. When I entered the house, I entered with an attitude. I was nit-picking my partner and projecting the shame i felt about not keeping my kitchen clean, onto him. I was negative and sarcastic at his expense and finally he had had enough! We then began to fight, and it wasn’t until we separated ways where I was able to rethink the situation. 

I realized that I had allowed my ego to slip in and take control and it almost ruined my night. I realize now that once I got home my frustrations throughout the day started spilling over. To be honest, I also realized that I often dump my daily frustrations onto my partner, and I can’t blame him for being tired of it. Not only was I dumping my problems onto him, but I was also attacking him for not doing the dishes or putting a new bag in the trash can. I would have shut down and walked away from me too. 

Once I realized how I had been acting, I had a decision to make. I could either continue my night with this attitude or I could apologize and turn the night around. Apologizing is hard, especially when your image is at stake. Thankfully I made the right decision and owned up to my wrongdoings.

My text read: 

“My regrets today:

I’m sorry for being hostile as soon as I got home.

For being negative at your expense. Definitely sorry for that. 

For projecting onto you the shame that I feel about not cleaning up after myself. 

I’m sorry for not asking about your day. Or your thoughts.

Sometimes I’m not sure how to approach you, and I guess I make a lot of wrong decisions.

But I am sorry, and I’ll change my energy.”

It’s crazy how closely you have to pay attention to yourself to change habits. It’s so important! You can either make bad patterns stronger or create new ones. Now that I realize this, I want changing my habits to be one of my focuses for this next year. Once they suit me and my desires, manifestation can begin!

P.S. Be kind to your partners in life. Someone that sticks by your side through all your bullshit is someone worth investing in. So invest in making yourself a better person, for you and for them! 

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1/17/22- A Light Switch

New Year’s is becoming one of my favorite holidays, and not for the reasons you are prolly thinking of. Im not one to really enjoy the bars, clubs or crowded places. New Year’s parties are fun, but it’s not what I look forward to with this holiday. 

What I look forward to is setting new goals for myself for the following year. Being the dreamer that I am, I love to look into the future and imagine what that could look like for me. The new year is a chance to create a new life, start out on a new foot and try to be a better person than I was the previous year. 

One aspect that comes with these new goals is the determination to conquer some bad habits and traits about myself that I have wanted to change for awhile now. My partner and I frequently discuss how we have struggled with the same things since we were in high school. I hate that year after year I am aware of my shortcomings but still repeat them every day, week, month and year. 

I was thinking about a situation in the car the other day and haven’t been able to shake the conversation with myself since. I recently started turning the outside light on at my house and leaving it overnight. Since doing this, I have trained myself to turn it off as soon as I come downstairs the next morning. 

I was thinking to myself that it’s crazy that I can create a routine for a light switch, but when it comes to important things, like my consistency with writing this blog, I always give up early, barely try or simply don’t try at all. This tells me that I am clearly capable of setting new routines and habits within a month, so why am I struggling so much changing a habit that I am aware of and want to change!? Imagine how drastically my life would change if I were to change some of my habits that have been plaguing my life for years. 

What are some ways you motivate yourself towards your goals? 

Do you have bad habits you have been trying to change for awhile? If so, what’s keeping you from conquering them?

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LEARNING TO LET GO

I entered my first serious relationship 6 years ago, and it has been one of the most life changing events in my life. It has forced me to look at myself in a different light, and a different perspective- often against my will. 

You see, I really thought I knew what love was about without ever having experienced it. I thought I had learned ‘how to love’ from music, movies and society. But what I didn’t take into consideration is that love and a relationship are two completely different individuals coming together with their own ideas of love and life. Pop culture and the media got it wrong, hell, even the church I grew up in got love wrong. 

Being the controlling asshole I am, I tried for years to make my partner and I’s love fit into a preconceived mold- a mold created and maintained by me. I fear being left alone so much that I would, and still do, cling and control my relationship. Ironically though, the tighter my grip became, the worse my relationship became. 

 As the relationship started to crumble apart in the summer of 2021, I was desperate for internal peace, and to know what love actually is. I realized that the love I was giving wasn’t actually love- and I wanted to fix this about myself. I picked up a book called, “The Path to Love,” by Deepak Chopra and finished the book rather quickly. This book was revolutionary for me, and is a book that I will read over multiple times. One of the biggest lessons I learned from this book was that love IS letting go- something that doesn’t come easily for me since I have a bad habit of harbouring feelings and emotions. 

As I was reading the book I recalled a time when I was lighting some incense. As I pulled the flame up the tip of the incense stick, I noticed that my hand holding the incense was shaking rather violently- so much so that I couldn’t get it to light. After a few seconds I realized that I was pinching the incense stick with my two fingers so tightly, as to not drop the stick, that it was causing it to shake like a motherf*cker! I thought to myself, “Why the hell am I gripping this so hard!?” So I relaxed and loosened my grip, and suddenly the shaking stopped. I knew and understood the concept of ‘letting go’ but this instance helped me realize HOW to let go. A simple act of relaxation and surrender. 

Love is allowing someone to be themselves with no judgement or restrictions. It is to accept the other person exactly as they are, despite their less-than-desirable qualities. It is understanding that we all have things we would like to fix about ourselves and that we all have preconceived ideas about what a relationship should be. And most importantly, love is accepting truths about yourself that may be hard to hear. 

I am now attempting to take what I have learned and apply it to my relationship. Letting go has given me a type of release and relaxation that is guilt and judgement free. All it takes is a deep breath and mentally changing my outlook. Letting go for me means releasing my need to control and manipulate a situation and to accept it for what it is, which also helps me to stay present and in the now. It is helping me to love better, and be more secure in myself. 

I have a lot of learning to do, and I am blessed to be with someone who pursues growth and understanding with a similar fervor as I do. Neither of us know what we are doing, but we are open to learning and discovering. And without my relationship with him, I may have never understood this about myself. 

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An Uphill Battle

“I sit by myself after being a liar. After fixing myself, I’m always too tired. Turn my back on it all cause I need to fly higher. With my ego at bay, no wrong things I acquire.

I can’t help it, Can’t deny it, Oh my soul it hurts, I’m cryin

I wanna feel whole, but this world is so tryin An uphilll battle, but I’m fightin, I’m climbin. Got dirt on my knees, and in the clouds there’s lightnin, Snakes in the grass, my ankles their bitin.

One wrong step and I’m done, I’m a goner But when I reach the summit, rough winds grow calmer. I made it to a cliff, and I can finally see water, So I jump off the edge and regain my honor. “

I have found that writing poems when I am emotionally distressed helps me to better understand the ‘why’ behind the emotions I’m feeling. I often lie to myself about my own truth… something I despise in myself. Because of this, I and am always trying to self examine myself to make sure certain behaviors aren’t hidden from me.

Confronting yourself is hard work and takes a lot of mental energy. But for me, it’s worth it. I’m someone that always wants to be moving in a positive and forward direction. I want to understand myself better, I want to push myself and I want to expand my knowledge. This often feels like turning my back on the people and the things I love, but it’s often a sacrifice Im willing to make with the hope of progressing intellectually, emotionally, mentally and spiritually

The path to enlightenment and consciousness is not an easy path to follow. The journey is often filled with great obstacles and hard work… both of which can be defeating and often makes me feel as if there is no hope of ever being where I would like to be as a person. But consistency is key, and pressing on is my only hope and my only option.

My hope is that one day my path will become easier to walk, that the trees will thin out the higher I climb. That I will be able to feel the wind again and that the sights I see on the summit will humble me to submission. My hope is that one day the climb will be worth it and that I will fully submit to my mere existence. At that point, I will take the leap and fly once again.

Nothing but Love, Ry Ryteous Dominietzsche Repasky

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Why ‘Confessions of a Suburban Douchebag?’

To put it quite simply, I am attempting to confront my fears of vulnerability by exposing my ‘douchiness.’ 

Let me unload this statement by sharing a bit about my history… 

I am a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), and I believe to have been this way since birth. Life was relatively ‘normal’ for me until the age of 5 when my sister was born. Her birth was nothing short of a miracle, being 6 months premature. I knew she needed extra attention, but back then, I don’t think I was that aware of how dire the situation actually was. My mom almost died in childbirth, and we almost lost my sister as well. They both spent MONTHS in the hospital, my mom leaving before my sister could. 

For me, this meant lots of stays with my grandparents and other family members, and I realize now how traumatic this could have been on me, or any other child in the situation. Feelings of being lost in the frantic shuffle extended stays with family members, and be shuffled from place to place, never sure of when I was going to see my mom, and if my sister was going to get to come home or not. This type of disturbance, combined with lack of information can be very disruptive for an HSP individual, much less one who is still a child and developing. 

Once my sister came home, her difficulties didn’t stop. She was hooked up to an oxygen tank 24/7 and we had a stay-at-home nurse for her first couple years of life. All attention was on my sister, but I never remember feeling jealous though. I would brush those feelings aside because I understood that she NEEDED the extra attention. I learned to withdraw inward, not wanting to cause any problems or added expenses. 

I was always well behaved, and entertained myself most days. My mom still jokes about how I would always be the first to wake, get myself some breakfast and turn on my cartoons every morning. I had a morning routine for myself like a little old man. 

Once life settled down and my family was back together, money quickly became a source of anxiety for me, probably due to over-hearing my parents discussing medical bills. I still remember my dad saying that my sister was ‘a million dollar baby.’ I couldn’t even fathom how much one million dollars was, so from then on, I tried my best not to have my parents spend any extra money. When aunts and friend’s parents would take us through the drive thru, they would ask me what I wanted to eat, and most of the time it was “I’m not hungry, but thank you.” I couldn’t stand the feeling of someone spending their money on me. I always felt bad. 

Life kept going, and I feel like I was a pretty normal kid, except for always being lost in my imagination and exercising my use of creativity. My relationship with my Mom was ok, but I never did look too fondly on my father. We didn’t have a relationship- many reasons Im sure I will get into later through this blog. Being raised in a religious home, my parents made themselves authority figures in the house making it difficult to have conversations with them. I knew I was loved, but neither of my parents were very emotionally present… something I desperately needed as an HSP. 

Once puberty started to hit, was when I realized that I was definitely different from the other boys at my Christian School. I was gay, hadn’t come to terms with it, and wouldn’t come out until I was 27. I attended the same christian school from kindergarten through 12th grade. I had church every Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wed night, and Thursday morning chapel. My whole life I had been taught that homosexuality was one of the worst sins, that it was an abomination to god and that I would go to hell for it. It taught me to hate myself. 

With all of this going on in my head, I withdrew further from my family. I felt that I couldn’t talk to my parents about it for fear that they would kick me out of the house and shun me. I saw no other choice but to internalize all of these feelings and questions I had. 

This was something I taught myself at an early age, to always withdraw inward. It is how I coped with the stress and confusion regarding my sister’s birth, how I handled puberty, sex and being gay. I have always been afraid of being vulnerable because vulnerability meant allowing someone to see me exposed.  

I said all of this, to try and help you understand WHY I have an issue with vulnerability and that It has been something that has been manifesting itself my entire life. I am still struggling with a lot of these same issues, but understanding myself has helped me cope and even grow from my past. 

This consistent lack of vulnerability has shaped my outlook on life. I have lived in my fear of uncertainty and low self worth. I daily self sabotage myself, making me depressed and angry at life. Slowly, my whole life, I have turned into the douchebag that I hated growing up. Shrouded in toxic masculinity- constantly trying to prove to everyone that I’m worthy. I’m not here to put myself on a pedestal, but rather step down from it. To let go of my hurt and bitterness of my past. 

We all have one. We all have hurt, trauma, bitterness and questions left unanswered. Confessions of a Suburban Douchebag, for me, is the release of these negative things. It’s a chance for me to take action on this new path of self discovery by journaling publicly the thoughts that go through my mind, the questions I ask myself, and the things I’m learning. To grow, we must face our fears, and mine is being vulnerable. So first, let me confess. Then watch me grow. 

Xoxo Ry Ryteous Dominietzsche Repasky

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