here is the intro for the “Beautiful as the Dawn” poem that i will post on facebook this week: “This poem illustrates the beauty of nature and the blessings of true friendship in helping ourselves realize our true inner worth. We all have friends that help us realize how special we are. I have written this poem to allow my friend Anita on tinnybuddha.com to realize how much she truly means to me. We should all take time to appreciate the people we have in our life. If you have a friend or someone in your life who has helped you, feel free to share your commments on appreciation. You can also post your thoughts on my poem.” also i did a meditation where i expanded my aura and imagined it to be a purple light and attracting a spiritual soulmate that would help guide me and heal me. the song “What about Now” reminds me of the spiritual soulmate i will soon find in my life. some of the lyrics ” Can we see beyond the scars and make it through the dawn.Change the colors of the sky and open up to the ways you made me feel alive, the ways i loved you. for all the things that never died to make it through the night, love will find you. … what if you’re making me all that i was meant to be? what if our love it never went away?” I also write the poems by hand first, sometimes using color pencils to express the words in their beauty before posting them and while posting, I edit my words to make them have more clarity. here are the three poems that i wrote about youth struggles in the world and realizing your true potential:

Into the Divine

All the shattered glass of youth breaks and the world comes rushing in

All these thoughts and responsibilities that must be learned

All the doubts and insecurities that lie within

Time seems to be slipping through fingers like sand

The world pushes the youth to learn all its skills molding the youth into being a part of society

Yet we must not forget the candle within us

The spirit of youthful vibrancy still is here

When the youth is uncertain how to chart his/her ships in rough waters

Let him/her run into the divine

Let all of us enjoy the beauty of living

So many expectations of the world as our limitations are brought to light

Will we ever be enough?

Money, Home Improvement, Travel Maps, Jobs; how does one learn all of these?

Pushed in many directions, the youth struggles for independence

He/She wants to learn to fly, but is he/she who she/he truly wants to be or the person shaped by the values of the world?

We must take time to reflect upon the values of that lie within our hearts

To take time to appreciate the cosmic being that we are

Run into the divine and experience youthful freedom

Appreciate the life you have rather than trying to escape it

Embrace the lessons you learn and take every opportunity to grow

Don’t let yourself or the world set limitations to cage who you were meant to be

Go into the divine, experience youthful freedom

It’s never too late to go for your dreams

Often times we spend too much time afraid dig ourselves up from the dirt when we could be blooming like a flower touching the sun

It’s okay if you still have life skills to learn

Even I have trouble reading east and west on a map sometimes, but I’ll still work my way looking at the streets using the compass and i will find a way

Even I have worries about budgeting m money for utilities, home, credit, bank and checks (doesn’t everyone worry a little?)

Even I fear I am not good enough, not strong enough or smart enough

We are all filled with doubts; young, adult or elderly

Yet we shouldn’t fear, we shouldn’t strive for perfection

Fear and intense perfection only make us feel worse about ourselves

We often put barriers upon our potentials of what we can truly achieve when we allow fear to control our lives

I may not be good at house repairs, managing money perfectly or reading maps perfectly, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have life skills

When the mirrors of youth that once reflected light upon the world and everything was new and beautiful until the glass broke and the pieces began to be shaped by the world, we were all divine

We still are

You are not less than perfect

It doesn’t matter if you are the smartest or the most athletic

We all have our divine talents

So run into the divine

Forget your insecurities, for there are none

Experience youthful freedom and all that you are

The worldly critics and the inner bully don’t control your life

It is you who make the decisions and experience your accomplishments and failures

How can the worldly critics and the inner bully know your true experiences when all they do is put you down restricting you from being happy?

We’ve all had our worldly critics and inner bully telling us that we aren’t good enough

Don’t listen to them, Ask yourself “Is what they say any help to my sense of worth? How do they know the life I live when I’m the one living it?”

You have power

Run into the divine

Experience eternal youth and your divine soul

Let the musical wings of your soul carry you past all the worldly critics and inner bullies

Hear only the melodies within

Run into the divine and let its music guide you into the pastures of heaven

Follow Your Star (I might have written a poem under this title already, but there is more insight to add)

You shouldn’t lose yourself in the competitive expectations of the world

Sometimes the path you take may go against society, but that doesn’t matter

Listen to your heart, follow your star and let your inner happiness light up the world

You could be chasing your dreams instead of living in fear

Seek within and ignite the spark

Play hard, no more counting others but counting the stars

Don’t live in the illusion of what others want you to be

Be yourself, it doesn’t matter if it is good enough for someone else

Appreciate who you are now, shed light on the dark parts of yourself and let them go

Instead of seeking perfection, be grateful for all that you have

Embrace the divine being within you

Focusing on your flaws will only make you lose sight of your goals

Each second of your life is important since there is no second chance

So let go of fear, of the need for perfection and just be

Keep your eyes on your star

Let the light of the divine guide you through life

Let yourself enjoy the gift of life waiting to unravel its beauty

Everything happens to make us better

Believe in yourself, cultivate the star within

Focus on the dreams you want and build the ladders to reach the heavens

Take chances, don’t be afraid to fall

One must risk falling to climb to the top of the apple tree

Don’t just stand there shaking the branches allowing your dreams to slip away as life passes you by

Even when the wind rattles the tree and the sun beats down fiercely, stay rooted and spread your branches to the heavens

As Winston Churchill once said in his Glory speech (Finest Hour): “The darker the hour, the more glorious the triumph.”

We must develop the courage to stand strong and tall

Dream of all the things you can be

Look at yourself and create who you truly want to be

It’s never too late to shoot for the stars regardless of who you are

So follow your star, seek the divine in life

The last poem has an intro to it: “I often hear and read stories criticizing idealism. Yet I believe it is important to keep a creative spark. So many people today have lost the true feeling of divine love and mental clarity. I wonder if growing up means losing your idealistic values. I believe we need to refocus within ourselves and realize the true value of the life again. So many people want all the knowledge, money and possessions of the world they forget the journey life can teach them. I want to know myself without the expectations of the world, to focus on my true self. Here is a poem that expresses my insecurities and passions.”

Youthful Reflections Interconnectedness of Life

When souls touch the heavens

How we wish we could stay among the stars forever

Dreaming as immortal Souls

Drifting in divine love

Even with our castles in the sky, we must still build the ladders up to them

All the hopes and doubts seem entangled as we fly and fall back upon the Earth

Must we lose our wings and our visions of heaven and take on the responsibilities before us?

We are never old as we take our time to embrace our souls

Let the wings of our souls help guide us

We are ever uncertain of our mark upon the world

Those who are creative may be told they have their head in the clouds and those who are logical are pestered by thoughts flowing like a stream through their minds

The youth set out on his/her path pulled in many directions

There seems to be so many responsibilities in life

All these thoughts locked inside as the youth travels down different paths

A mix of emotions yearning to set his/her soul free

Can we see ourselves in the heavens and never lose the happiness of truly being alive while also accepting the world’s responsibilities?

As time seems to sift away and relationships build and break

We learn the lessons of life

Yet the youth questions if it is worth life to present us with happiness and sorrow which in his/her eyes seem to follow hand in hand

The youth insecure working to listen to his/ her heart, yet also being swayed by the world

He/She is no longer the carefree child, but one who has become a better person fraught with wisdom

All the things he/she must learn seem to be in a limited time

He/She yearns to learn the ways of the world while maintaining his childhood integrity

Society tells him/her “You must do this, you must do that. You must learn this, you must learn that.”

The youth hopes he/she can learn all that is possible to survive in society

Admist all the knowledge coming in, the youth forgets his/her own innermost talents

Yet the life we live is incomplete without the realization of the divine being we truly are

Each day we spend doubting, listening to what others think we should be or learn; we question ourselves “Can we live among the stars again?”

Can we build the foundations on Earth with our souls to touch heaven?

I believe we can.

Age is only just a number

We need to see our interconnectedness to the universe to experience the wings of our youthful soul

We need to remind ourselves to enjoy each moment of the beautiful present of life unwrapping the journey with love

When we lose sight of the creative spark within us we become like paper always bending to whatever dictates us rather than listening to our hearts

The youth is important and so are the elderly as they each have something to teach us

The youth have the beauty of life and the development of courage to deal with uncertainty while the elderly can share their wisdom from their life’s experiences

We often classify the elderly and dying as useless

Yet they have important lessons to teach us

We see through both the youth and the elderly the appreciation of the life they live

And so life comes full circle

The spiritual being that enters as a youth to learn the lessons of the world and become an adult

Once the lessons learned we become the wise elderly sharing our memories of love

Aren’t the pure love of the elderly and the youth the same?

Aren’t we all human and interconnected?

The youth, the elderly, the dying don’t know their impact upon the world

They are insecure always wondering if they know or did enough for the world when their greatest talent already lies within them

We talk about all the things, we must learn, the things we must do; never realizing happiness is already within and around us

We have love and perfection if we choose to listen to the youth, the dying and the elderly

Are we all not the energy of the stars?

Can we see and appreciate the cycle of life?

The youth and the elderly are quite alike as they both require care and they both have wisdom to share

The dying help us to appreciate life more

As we were born from star dust, we return to the dust of the soil

We nourish the plants and nourish the animals which nourish the people

We return to the spiritual being we once were part of in the universe

Nothing is ever lost

I died and became soil dust and rose to a plant

I died as a plant and rose as to animal

I died as an animal and I was man

So it is okay to feel insecure about life, to wonder if all the knowledge you have is enough

We spend a lifetime on Earth wondering about our place in the world

We are told many things of which to believe

Yet we must listen to ourselves and our hearts and always reach for the stars.

last night i had a great dream in which i was soaring above the clouds with the buddha holding my hand. i saw the buddha smiling and all around me was light. i began to ascend a spiral staircase and all around me were angels and i felt completely alive with purpose. i heard a voice saying “you are becoming one with the universe , you are healed and whole.” as i reached the top of the staircase, i felt the heaviness of my physical body leave and the world fade away as i felt myself explode like a supernova star shining the most divine and loving light into the universe. i began floating as a cloud and all around me the angels were singing and the buddha had such a radiant smile and everything was so beautiful and i realized that i was part of the great universe and whatever path i take would always lead to home. i also knew that whatever i was, whoever i was would always be divine and enough and i realized i could embrace the divine perfection in me that had always been there.
this morning, my inner bully was telling me that i couldn’t do this or that b/c i wasn’t good enough such as this example: “you can’t be an scientist, since you have your head in the clouds with poetry.”

i managed to do a meditation which made me transcend the inner bully whom i chose to ignore and say “so what if i wrote poetry and i am a scientist? i can do both.” anyway, i was out in the garden watering my flowers and the mosquitoes were like my inner bully and i was fighting them. anyway, i was quite entranced by the beauty of the flowers and i forgot the mosquitoes and started not to fight them and to my surprise the itchiness faded away and also the mosquitoes didn’t bother me as much. there were still some bites that itched and some mosquitoes, but not as much and i also felt my inner bully go away. i learned that fighting something only makes it worse instead you should accept it and let it go and it works:) i have written in some edits to the former ap biology assignment and have also written a three poems about the struggles of being a youth and going for your full potential. i also love how science fits into every aspect of life since i was reading about the cell’s membranes being nonpolar and only nonpolar molecules could enter excluding water and carbon dioxide which are polar and oxygen which is a diatomic molecule (exists as two atoms bonded in nature). water enters and exits the cell membrane through osmosis. anyway i was thinking of the cell membrane as the positive vibration of my aura that protected me from negative energies getting in. anyway, i also have three other poems inspired by the songs “Home” by Daughtry, “When I’m gone” by Three Doors Down, “Don’t You Worry Child” by Swedish House Mafia. they are on page 32 on this forum and in July 23, 2016 at 2:43 pm if you need to refer back. anyway, i also took inspiration from three other songs called “What I’ve Done” by Linkin Park, “The Pretender” by Foo Fighters and “I won’t worry my life away” by Jason Mraz. In “What I’ve done”, the singer talks about letting go of his pain and starting again on a new slate even if it means starting in uncertainty. the singer will “erase himself and let go of what i’ve done. put to rest what you thought of me.” the singer is saying he will forgive himself for his faults and wash away the pain, to “face himself and cross out what i’ve become.” the pretender talks about people being kept in the dark, in ignorance and how the singer will live his life on his own terms and not be part of the world’s plays. the singer says “what if i’m not like the others? i’m what’s left, i’m what’s right.” the singer seems to be a bit at war with the world in this stanza because the singer believes they all hide behind masks and don’t show their true selves and the singer has a confidence in himself/herself that he/she is right and he/she will help make the world right, this part is a bit vengeful in a way, but i like the idea of the singer having the courage to break the illusions in society, to rise and be himself, to show both his positives and negatives. i won’t worry my life away is about enjoying life and it doesn’t matter if things go wrong because life is meant to be lived. i especially like this stanza “When I fall in love I take my time. There’s no need to hurry when I’m making up my mind.You can turn off the sun but I’m still gonna shine and I’ll tell you why. Because the remedy is the experience.” i think this means about not rushing your life, taking your time to enjoy the decisions and living the experience of being alive even if the light seems to be far away.

as much as i would like to learn as much as i can about paying bills, taxforms, house and car and financial things as well as home improvement, i wish my parents din’t have such a negative attitude toward those subjects. it would be easier to learn if my parents weren’t complaining and arguing about how the world is harsh on them and their financial things. sometimes when i try to learn them, there complaints get in the way and it spoils the learning for me. they seem to only see the bad habits within the financial world and i’m not like that and i don’t want to be that way. i want to learn how to be self-sufficient, but sometimes it can be hard to learn things b/c their complaining makes me feel insecure about myself.

thanks a lot anita for your help:) i agree about teaching a child with kindness instead of yelling at them. i read in ap psychology book that my ap world history teacher lent me this year and it said that authoritative parents are the best, they set limits for their child, but they also allow the child to have freedom, they don’t criticize the child too harshly, but they are assertive in their parenting. demanding parents and passive parents aren’t very good b/c demanding parents diminish their child’s self-esteem while passive parents tend to spoil their children.

yeah, there are so many steps to generating atp and it is a bit complex. i like the inner critic b/c it seems useful in helping a person be the best that they can be without being a perfectionist in society. i like your term the “inner bully” and the way you distract yourself when it comes up. i like being part of tinybuddha.com and writing my thoughts b/c by expressing my emotions, i can see the inner bully as what it really is and gain comfort that i have the power to stop its progress. my inner bully just told me i had no talents and i proved it wrong b/c i just wrote a poem. here is the poem about you:

Candle in the Wind

She is the sunlight passing through prisms casting rainbows upon the world

She is the candle of hope that flickers in the darkness

All the light at full brightness

All the wavelength of her beauty and compassion dispersed

Anita is the candle in the wind

Her light allows others to be guided when their ships are at rough seas

She helps to rekindle the flame within hearts alighting them with hope

Anita is the north star steadfastly casting her light in the night sky, a light for others to follow

She reassures my doubts away with her unwavering light

T%here is divine music in her light as she helps me realize my true worth

When the wind blows the map of life away and I feel stranded on the road of life, the candle within Anita helps me back on my path

She lights the way and helps me believe in myself when the wind tugs in many directions

Anita is a candle in the wind

May her light continue to shine at full brightness lighting up the darkness of the world.

i think my inner bully is also making me a bit self-conscious. i am also looking forward to winter. ap biology is a bit hard and sometimes it is hard to synthesize the concepts from the reading. i am learning about glycolysis, cellular respiration and all the other ways atp can be produced and used. my inner bully seems to be irritating these days telling me that i will never be good enough to be a scientist. the essay is due on 8/16 and i still have two more chapters to get through and to organize my notes. my inner bully has been telling me that i’m ignorant, that i’m not healthy and that i shouldn’t try to do well in ap biology. for the chemical bonds essay, i received a 28/40. my inner bully has begun to take that as that i am not competent enough to be in the class. the inner bully is even worse when i’m around people b/c it will always compare me to others and say that i’m not perfect. it’s not helping me much that dave went on a nature trip while andrew is competing with me and my parents are criticizing me. the good thing is that i am making progress and whenever i do something successfully, i tell the inner bully “see i am capable of things.” it will take some time to get rid of the inner bully’s grasp, but i’m celebrating the little victories.

thanks a lot anita for explaining atp and adp, you have a great memory:) your explanation helped clarify some of the things i didn’t understand in the book. i also like your analogy about “investing time in mindfulness requires energy, but it pays a great dividend” that is quite clever and true. the formula glucose+ oxygen —> water and CO2, Energy can be related to a fun scenario. sugar (glucose) represents positivity or sweetness and oxygen represents the air or freedom/ lightness which helps nourish the person (water) and gives the person energy to live life to the fullest and CO2 can be used by plants to generate energy highlighting the interconnectedness of the universe. also the process of photosynthesis is similar to cellular respiration, the equation is just reversed for cellular respiration. plants convert light energy to chemical energy that can be used by humans. enjoy your walk;) it is raining here and will possibly rain again tomorrow and the next day. glucose is C6H12O6. here is the chemical reaction for photosynthesis: 6CO2+ 6H2O—-> C6H12O6+ 6O2. the arrow represents light energy.