Kern Carter's Blog, page 131
December 23, 2020
Creativity Isn’t Magic, It’s Meticulous
There are ways to ignite your creativity and be deliberate about the way you imagine and execute ideas.
December 21, 2020
December 17, 2020
Write Like You’re Putting on a Show
When you sit down to write, it’s important to think about the audience. You’re a performer and they want to be entertained. So entertain!
December 15, 2020
December 14, 2020
We’ve updated our submission guidelines
We know the new year is coming up, but we didn’t want to wait to make changes. We’ve made some updates to our submission guidelines that will be important for all of our contributors. Here are the highlights:
Subject matterPreviously, all content needed to be consistent in either inspiring or educating our audience within the writing or general creative industry. We have broadened this scope to include stories of emotional tales or situations that you have experienced. It doesn’t have to be specifically about creativity, but it must be personal in describing your emotional condition.
How to submitIf you are new to CRY and not already one of our writers, we ask that you email your draft to kern@wecrydeep.com. Please make sure it is a draft within Medium and not already published.
To send a draft, simply click on the three dots beside “publish” on the top right corner of your story. You will then have the option to copy and paste the link which you can then email to the above address.
If you’re already a writer for CRY, simply submit your story in draft form. If you have not heard back from us within three days, it means we will not be publishing your piece.
No more writing promptsWe’ve made a name for ourselves with our regular writing prompts, but we’re giving that a bit of a rest, at least for this upcoming year. Instead, submissions will be open all year round. Feel free to submit whatever you like as long as it fits with what we’ve described in the subject matter heading.
We’ve updated our submission guidelines was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Reclaiming Our Power, Not as a Victim, but as a Person
Photo by Lucaxx Freire on UnsplashOne autumn evening, Joanna and I had our usual talk about life. 2020 took a toll on everyone, including us. The unexpected happened and it moved into a new way of life really quickly. But, in this cluttered mess of the unseen and the uncertainty, I found the answer to a question I failed to ask myself. I came face to face with a lesson I never quite mastered and it has changed me ever since then.
Individuality can be linked to our own uniqueness and unwavering personality. The most significant part of the human psyche is doing things our mind dictates us to do so. We get lost in the mental prison that we create for ourselves based on past trauma, experiences and betrayals. The pattern becomes so starkly visible that it is hard to ignore. It becomes a part of us. If we deviate from the pattern or try something else, it feels like losing ourselves for the worse.
But we want to feel “normal.” To get there, however, we get stuck with winning ourselves back in all the glorified, yet wrong ways. We neglect running with the feeling and instead, we run away from it.
Most of the time, our mind creates illusions of winning and we fail miserably to see beyond the smoke and veil. It clouds our judgements and thus, a mirage is born. Something seemingly out of nowhere, but which was with us all along as unprocessed emotions. The residue of it triggers an undeniable feeling as we grow older.
The key to unlocking the feeling of hopelessness and getting out of the spiralling trap lies in our willingness to process it once and for all. Even knowing this, it is easier said than done. To claim back our power and return to the time before our shadows took over can be considered the real victory. That is the true justice done to ourselves as humans and not as victims.
“The key to unlock the feeling of hopelessness and to get out of the spiraling trap lies in the willingness to process it once and for all.”
Here are 5 simple ways to claim back our power — to claim back what is real.
Learn our Strengths and WeaknessesConsider the battle won if we can master our strengths and weaknesses. Clearly knowing what to work on, which part of us to accept and reject, which part to let go, which part to hold on to plays a pivotal role in bringing out the best version.
No power can be found in portraying half-baked truth. Remember, a part of it will always be missing and it could be the most important piece of evidence which will lead to learning who we are.
Put this into action
Focus on our strength and expand the consciousness surrounding the concerns that might improve it. To gather up the will to move through our darkest days and still believe in the light within us needs the strength that is culminated within us.
“No power can be found in portraying the half-baked truth.”
2. Unlearn Life
Sometimes, all we need is to unlearn what we already know. It is a brutal truth that what no longer works for us will not serve any purpose. The personality we became as a result of the reflection of our situations will always play out as mere reflections.
There comes a phase when acceptance kicks in and everything we thought we were will crumble as a broken mask that cannot be mended.
A new order of change comes in. A new dynamic plays out. All we can do at that moment is to stare at the blank space and rebuild our true character. The one which speaks volumes about how wrong it is to live as someone else.
Because of the fear we chose when we were young; because of the chain that we chose to wear, one that has been there for generations, it has become our crown. It looked as though it was shining from the outside only to become a rusted piece of junk through the test of time.
“The personality we became as a result of the reflection of our situations has always played out as mere reflections.”
Put this into action
Start over. Start running towards the dream again. Start building the pieces bit by bit. No one has to validate. No one needs to see it. No one has the right to tell us how to live our lives. Someone’s judgement of us is an indicator of a trigger within their own self.
3. Embrace Changes
Not every change is going to welcome us with open arms. It is going to break us, take the life out of us and present itself as an end. However, an end to bring forward a new beginning. It is hard to lose someone we love, even harder when we lose ourselves.
But if we understand from a deeper level; there is a very thin line where an epiphany comes in. Everything that has ever happened has had a reason and will continue to have one.
Seek the answers in the midst of all these changes. We often ignore or misuse the most powerful tool we have — our mind.
Put this into action
One of the ways to anchor ourselves and stay grounded is to control our minds. When we lose a part of us, it’s suffocating. It feels claustrophobic. It hurts and aches, but we can’t put a finger on its origins.
The pain resonates as we breathe. And, as pessimistic as it sounds, there is no other way but to feel it; the whole of it. Because if we don’t find the source and uproot it, it is most likely to come back and haunt us. To find balance between the heart and the mind is the ultimate way to freedom. Navigate the challenging tide of change with a mind that is ready to find solutions rather than staying stagnant.
4. Live as a Person, not as a Victim
We get so stuck with winning and wearing the victory badge that it becomes a toxic pattern. However, we hardly realize it. We get out of a mess and call ourselves “Survivor”.
The “Survivor” mentality made such a strong impression that the next time we fall, we try so hard to prove not to anyone, but to ourselves, that we need to survive.
If we look closely there is a pattern of playing the victim card; a victim to our own mind. The badge of victory is an illusion that makes us feel good; a false reality. We get so stuck with winning and wearing the victory badge that it becomes a toxic pattern.
If for once we look within the deepest core; the only part of us that screams the loudest needs to be looked at.
Put this into action?
Live, breathe and accept from a higher perspective, and not as a victim. There is no reason to prove that we are survivors if there is even the slightest possibility of victimhood involved.
Thrive in a way that we no longer operate from the ego frame of mind, nor playing the victim.
5. Fall in Love with the worst version of Ourselves
It is easy when the going is good. It becomes slightly difficult when a change is involved and at extremes when we face a turning point.
The whole meaning of life is an irony. Falling in love with our inner fears and the worst version of ourselves is quite a task.
It can take years and we might fail. And, in the worst-case scenario, we might not even try to accept ourselves.
Put this into action
Our insecurity stems from the part of us that we neglected. It speaks in layers about why we get a feeling of uneasiness and face resistance when we try to love ourselves. The answer is to fully open ourselves to vulnerability, to emotions, and allow ourselves to dive into an inner knowingness of what solution we can offer to our underlying problems.
Final thoughts:
Life is complex, especially for the fact that we feel one thing and end up doing the other. Many of us are scared of the ascent as the climb uphill is the steepest. And we often go for the easiest option because we think it’s going to get easier from there. But this a trap.
There is so much more to it than just one perspective. And, claiming our authentic selves is the only way to start realizing that little things in life matter.
Reclaiming Our Power, Not as a Victim, but as a Person was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
December 12, 2020
You had a lot to say this week
I love when I can read someone else’s work and feel the energy of the piece. It’s like the words are lightning bolts that leap off the page and charge my mind.
That feeling happened a lot this week and our writers are to thank. They delivered moving monologues on love, fear, absence and guilt. Here’s what you missed:
I Love You For Us and Me by D.L Shultz
Sometimes I Feel Like I’m Losing My Voice by Tre L. Loadholt
Nietzsche can help you overcome guilt by Shikhar Chaudhary
I also jumped in the mix this week with a piece titled Chaos and Creativity. It’s a short think piece on our ability to create through strained conditions.
We already have more stories coming in so next week promises to be equally as inspiring. Keep submitting. We’re staying open to submissions over the holidays so if you feel like you have something to say, say it. We’ll publish it.
You had a lot to say this week was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
