Exploring Life

10/28/19 In all my life, I have never felt the way I feel now. As I write this, my hands shake at the emotion I feel. Now I get why God continually called His people out of wicked lands such as Chaldea for Abraham, Sodom and Gomorrah for Lot and his family, and Egypt for Moses and the Israelites. Remaining in a place where there's so much evil, it literally makes me want to throw up. Where the people around you are doing the worst things you've never witnessed and that make you physically sick. It must have been such a relief for Abraham, Moses, and Lot to leave that behind and start a new life serving God in an environment that isn't plagued with sin and wickedness. It's one thing when someone sins, it's a whole other thing when someone not only sins, but they deeply enjoy it, and they look forward to the next time they can do it again. Where they are so attached to evil that it's like it follows them wherever they go, leaving a long rancid stench in every ar

10/20/19 What I realized is that one of the biggest problems in improv is not listening to your partner. Other problems are: not being aware of what they're saying, what you're saying and only doing what you want but not giving any time to the other players.

10/18/19 He who perceives all beings in the Self, and the Self in all beings, does not entertain any hatred on account of that perception.       - Ishavaysa Upanishad

10/17/19 Signs of the Ego: Demanding attention for something that you did. Giving your opinion when no one asked for it, and when it makes no difference for the current situation. Trying to get attention by talking about your problems, or the hard and horrible situations that you've gone through, or making a scene. Being more concerned about how the other person sees you rather than the other person. In every situation, you treat yourself like you're the center of the universe. With any situation, you only see things from your perspective, and you see your perspective as the only correct one. You are right, they are wrong. Even if you're wrong, they don't understand how they are actually also wrong in your eyes as well. It doesn't matter if they're perfect, you still find fault in someone and blow it up, complain, and gossip about it.  You grow animosity towards people who criticize you because it diminishes your ego and threatens your egos' existence. You d

9/29/19 Sometimes the biggest attackers of something are those who are hurting the most, either for the same reasons deep, deep down or because of other issues in their life that cultivated a life of criticism and judgment. I understand there are people out there who honestly are confused and are just doing what they were told to believe by their church or by those they respect.  Or maybe they grew up with their parents preaching a certain destructive mentality. Nonetheless, most times people who go out of their way to show intense disapproval of others are very miserable in their own lives. They're so miserable, and so the way they deal with that misery is by trying to make people feel as miserable as themselves.They might not even know that's the true unconscious reason behind why they attack people, but it is the reason behind a lot. People will hide behind religion, behind people, behind anything besides themselves to give them a reason to attack someone else and try to ma

8/12/19 In some denominations within Christianity, we are told to tell others, "pray this prayer, and you'll be saved." Don't get me wrong, I love and appreciate prayer very much, but I believe saving is much more than just that. I feel as if so many people use prayer as a means to an end rather than the purpose of being in the p resence of God. It's as if prayer has been reduced to something sort of like a get out of jail for free card rather than as a way to access the divine, peaceful, presence of God.  I believe the true aim of our lives isn't just to get out of whatever we consider bad, but rather to become fully enlightened of who we truly are, and the unlimited, unending, eternal God, and the oneness we all share whether we believe it or not. I've known people who've suffered with anxious, stressful, depressing, suicidal thoughts and so on. Some considered chronic and some that come and go. I've not only heard of it, I've experienced

8/11/19 I cannot begin to fathom how amazing our Creator God is. These past few months, I've felt the hand of God so vibrantly in my life that I'm in constant awe of all that is going on in and around me. Inwardly, I've had a peace from God that no matter how hard it's gotten outside of me, the peace within has never left.  And my focus of trying to see the good in every situation, to see the beauty in every person, and to consciously look for ways to give back and help others have created a supercharged positive emotion fill me beyond what I've ever experienced before in my life.  Even when I hit valleys, I still experience them as peaks, and when I'm on a peak, I'm at a place where I don't want to do anything else but to love and serve those around me. God continues to amaze me day by day.

8/9/19 I don't understand it, but deep down it just feels right. Everything just feels like it's meant to be. I don't know why, but it just is. I'm not fighting against, I'm not chasing it, I'm just being and somehow just being has brought me exactly where I am now and right now I feel beyond amazing.  I feel like I'm on cloud infinity. Not because of what is outside of me, but the peace of what is within me. I feel like tapping into this peace has allowed only the best to come my way. The best situations, best people, best challenges, best everything. Nothing in the past, nothing in the future can compare to right now, this very moment.

8/9/19 I don't understand it. I don't know if I ever will. I feel like sometimes the universe moves, and things fall into place. Sometimes naturally people fall out of your life and others naturally fall right in.

8/4/19 "The purpose of human life is to realize the Self, who is but God himself and attain oneness with Him."           - Bhagavad-gītā Therefore, the Bhagavad-gītā clearly affirms Brahman (God) as the highest goal (parandhama). He is to be realized through contemplation upon the Self (God). Liberation is the ultimate aim (parmartha) of human life, but God is the ultimate goal."            - Commentary from site As I learn from that which I do not know, I continue to be in awe of how similar our aims and goals really are with those we may not know much about. We tend to look outward at the forms and methods, but God looks at the heart. When someone is seeking the Creator, I believe regardless of where they're from, what culture they ascribe to, what religion they were born into, I believe they'll be able to find the Creator of the Universe. Hinduism has many branches and sects just as any other religion has, but one of the oldest branches of Hinduism asks those

July 29th, 2019 I cannot begin to fathom how amazing God is. He is beyond my wildest dreams. He is beyond all the wonders of the world. He is beyond all good things combined. He is more vast than the stars, and yet as available to us as the air we breathe. He is infinite yet here with us in this very moment.  His love for us is so intense that we cannot even being to even scratch the surface of its depths. How do you fully comprehend the Creator of an infinite, unending universe, who is everywhere and all places and in all places?  How can you truly understand the one who knows all people and their deepest parts in every single place all at the same time? How is He available to 7.6 billion people, and yet He still cares about me? I cannot begin to fathom how amazing God truly is.

7/19/19 At the end of the day, it matters the most that you protect yourself from that which is possibly threatening your happiness. Always strive to be loving, kind, and nice, but don't feel like you are required to give anyone your attention. Always, always check motives because interactions can be deceiving, but their heart will sooner or later reveal the motive behind their actions. Someone can hug you, smile with you, laugh with you, and still wait in anticipation for your failure and bring you down in whatever conversation they can. Consider everything. Why did they ask you that question? Why did they lie? And if your intuition is trying to tell you something isn't right, then that's all you need to know to move on. If for some reason your paths cross, always strive to be nice because life is too short for anything less, but don't give up your precious time to someone like that. Now you're aware of their motives and if for any reason they try doing that to an

July 2019 You can't please everyone, I repeat: you cannot please everyone. Even if it's the best decision for yourself, someone could be offended, and you may never know. You might get some success and for some reason they can't handle you shining that brightly. Or other times, you fail, and they're strangely happy about it, but they try hard not to show it. Don't allow their negativity from outside of you to seep in and affect you from within. People will be people. There will be really awesome and kind people and vice versa. A lot of what people do is motivated from a place deep within themselves. Their behavior is displaying a part of their deepest self, and that has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with them. You cannot control other people's behavior, but you can choose how to respond. When in doubt, choose the narrow gate that leads to life. Choose the way that frees you from the negativity that is thrown your way, and free you'll be, ind

July 2019 In life, we constantly shift from two perspectives, an optimistic one and a pessimistic one. A positive mindset and a negative one. You don't need to think negatively in order to stop thinking negatively. Actually having a positive mindset will do that for you. So trying to point out the negativity in others or in yourself you might think might help others, but I would argue that it's not as helpful as uplifting that person in the same amount of time.  The time you spend pointing out the negative energy, you could've spent that same time talking about the other side of the coin and encouraging that behavior. When we dwell on mistakes in the past, it pulls us into the past and allows that negativity to affect us. Either creating remorse, pain, regret etc. Those times are best with God because we find complete and absolute forgiveness. But since time is already so short and our interactions are limited, we should strive to flood others with positivity, which has the

July 2019 Vidcon has been an answer to prayer. I realized that my passivity to chasing my dreams and not setting goals is killing my opportunities in the future. I can't wait for things to fall in my lap, I have to work my lil toosh off day in and day out. Hearing these successful YouTubers made me realize they literally put it all on the line. They strived for perfection. They set ambitious goals and they achieved them. They never stopped, even when it got hard. I complained about the time spent to shoot, edit and publish taking 6-8 hours when they're putting in whole days of just shooting and multiple days of editing. I realized how much I've underperformed in that area during the summer. I know during the semester that's another story, but this summer is a gift to do just that. To finally put those 50 hours into YouTube and treat it as my future. To hit those milestones and to not care what other people think. Just like with any job, any career, there are definite g

June 30th 2019 I am a visionary. I do this thing where I see myself from a futuristic perspective. I see myself at a place where I intend to be, where I know I'll be if I work hard, and then it's almost like my current self gets restless and starts to work toward it. Normally I'd be all gung-ho about it, but the thing is, is I have to recover from my surgery. I have to rest in bed. I have to get better. I have to heal and now is not the time to be entertaining the masses, marketing myself, and yet it's almost like my body is on autopilot. It only sees the goal at the present, and it's catching up to get to that spot. When I want something, it affects everything I do, and honestly I just need to calm myself down and focus on recovering, but it's so hard. It's like trying to force yourself to walk when all you want to do is sprint. Or forcing yourself to eat broccoli as you watch everyone else around you eat Ben and Jerry's half-baked ice cream. It is not

To be honest, before my boyfriend brought up Orthodoxy I didn't really know what it was, nor did I care what it was and therefore never researched to understand more about it. For all I know my Greek Yiayia (Grandma) and her family were Greek Orthodox until her mother decided to leave and attend a Foursquare church (she was 12 years old at the time). Then eventually she received an honorary pastor recognition at the Foursquare church she continued to attend. Growing up, my Yiayia was your typical Greek Yiayia. She lived in a room downstairs, she spoke Greek, she sang beautiful songs downstairs, and she really knew how to eat... A lot. And she really liked her white wine! Not only that, but she was the funniest Yiayia I ever knew. When the whole vine stuff happened she stole the show on my vine multiple times and by the time of her death, many reached out in the comments sharing how much she meant to them, and that was beautiful. She lived a long, healthy life with the Lord and is

This week, I had a major wake-up call. For so much of my actual acting career, I've been incredibly passive. Some of it issue to laziness, some due to a busy schedule, some of it due to insecurities of my peers judging me. However, being around people who are all motivated and motivating me to do what I want to do has completely revolutionized my motivation to achiever what I set out to achieve. For some reason, I was afraid to set goals. Afraid to be judged by society for setting those goals and achieving them. Not anymore. I have goals, I have ways to achieve them, and I will manifest them through the power of God.