It is not by accident I gravitated to the word heathen. My beliefs, view points, hell my entire damn personality can not be described as main stream. I guess in reality I have always been a heathen at heart. I was raised Mormon, I was baptized but I don't feel like I ever truly was a Mormon.
But here I sit in Salt Lake City Utah the literal home of the Mormon church, a heathen among saints. However ever since I put the "Religious solicitors get off my porch" decal on my door the chisen religion of Utah has ceased to bother me. But before that... I might have yelled at a few door to door men of Jesus who would not take a polite "I'm not interested" answer.
So how am I a heathen? Well, I subscribe to no real religious beliefs. I am ordained by The Church of the Latter-Day Dude AKA Dudeism. It has served me well and I have officiated many weddings thanks to that. My personality and lifestyle are generally not welcomed with open arms by most religious folks. But that does not really bother me. I am happy being me and I can honestly say I love who I am and for the most part how I am. I have not always been this accepting of myself. In fact I spent the better part of my life living with self loathing and a pathetic wish that I was somehow someone different or better. That experience netted me a whole bunch of wasted time.
So why Healing Heathen SLC? Well when I ran out of memory on my free wix site that I used to blog I had to make a choice. I even asked for advice on Facebook. I was given many good ideas. Even the one to return to Blogger. Spending $16 a month to keep my Wix site going is just not something I could see myself budgeting for every month. Call it vanity call it what you must but a part of me hated the idea of have a .blogspot address again.
So I spent an unreasonable amount of time researching and pondering how to satisfy my joy of writing and mix it with the weird satisfaction I get from having a personal web address. A few days into that adventure I came up with the name Healing Heathen SLC. We already went over the cliff notes of why heathen. As for the healing part... Well if you were to ask some of my closest friends where they go for advice of the life variety a common answer would be me.
I have also spent the better part of the last six years in recovery. I mean a few of those years were spent pretty intoxicated and living as a walking red flag who collected other red flags. When I say recovery I am not talking about the burnt coffee with stale baked goods collecting coins to mark my time line of accomplishment recovery. But really, hats off to those people that kind of recovery is also an accomplishment.
My recovery was from self loathing, depression, trauma of various kinds with some PTSD mixed in to make my sense of humor really slap with the right crowd. I was a people pleaser lost among the sea of people. I lacked self worth and boundaries that are critical for a decent existence.
I lacked sense of self. I mourned people who used me and left me when they could no longer see a value in keeping me around. I put myself in stupid situations that were mentally and sometimes financially expensive just so I could keep a "Friend" and not let someone down. Like a black hole for stupidity and poor life choices I sucked in a revolving crowd.
So that dear reader is what I have had to heal from. It is mind boggling what we as humans can put ourselves through. It is almost impressive how many of us can never take ownership of those self made trials and wander through life always cried how they have been screwed and they cant afford any more lubrication. I could have been one of those people. However I got sick of not only my own bullshit but all of the bullshit. The shitter was full if you will.
As fun as this trip down memory lane is describing all of this I should move on. I have in past blog posts that can be found here and here gone into greater detail. There are also some lost works from that one time I thought I could use wordpress and well... Like I said lost works. You can probably track my rise and fall in mental health if you read all of those from start to finish. I also have a podcast. It's not dead! It is just on an extended vacation while life has been hectic for Jeff and I.
Now that we have gotten that out of the way I would like to welcome you all to my new digital home. I feels good to know my blogging future is secure and has place among the web addresses. If you have found this blog and are new to my writing please check back in I promise it gets better. For those of you who have been following me thanks for sticking around.
One last thing I need to accomplish on this post. This blog is dedicated to the late great Adam Forsgren. Adam without you I never would have ventured into the world of writing or podcasting. You were such an inspiration to so many. You were one of those people I would have deep life changing conversations with and I truly miss them. I hope you are among the stars you loved so much man. We all miss you here and life is not the same without you.
My recovery was from self loathing, depression, trauma of various kinds with some PTSD mixed in to make my sense of humor really slap with the right crowd. I was a people pleaser lost among the sea of people. I lacked self worth and boundaries that are critical for a decent existence.
I lacked sense of self. I mourned people who used me and left me when they could no longer see a value in keeping me around. I put myself in stupid situations that were mentally and sometimes financially expensive just so I could keep a "Friend" and not let someone down. Like a black hole for stupidity and poor life choices I sucked in a revolving crowd.
So that dear reader is what I have had to heal from. It is mind boggling what we as humans can put ourselves through. It is almost impressive how many of us can never take ownership of those self made trials and wander through life always cried how they have been screwed and they cant afford any more lubrication. I could have been one of those people. However I got sick of not only my own bullshit but all of the bullshit. The shitter was full if you will.
As fun as this trip down memory lane is describing all of this I should move on. I have in past blog posts that can be found here and here gone into greater detail. There are also some lost works from that one time I thought I could use wordpress and well... Like I said lost works. You can probably track my rise and fall in mental health if you read all of those from start to finish. I also have a podcast. It's not dead! It is just on an extended vacation while life has been hectic for Jeff and I.
Now that we have gotten that out of the way I would like to welcome you all to my new digital home. I feels good to know my blogging future is secure and has place among the web addresses. If you have found this blog and are new to my writing please check back in I promise it gets better. For those of you who have been following me thanks for sticking around.
One last thing I need to accomplish on this post. This blog is dedicated to the late great Adam Forsgren. Adam without you I never would have ventured into the world of writing or podcasting. You were such an inspiration to so many. You were one of those people I would have deep life changing conversations with and I truly miss them. I hope you are among the stars you loved so much man. We all miss you here and life is not the same without you.
Bishop :(:
I never knew Adam, but I wish I did. He sounds like an amazing person and someone to aspire to be like.
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