I wrote this for a friend, thought it could be relatable for other men or anybody else who faces the challenge of self doubt or insecurities within a society that dictates who or what we should be.  The name has been changed as respect for privacy.  Enjoy! 

TOM HATES HIMSELF

​Because he thinks he eats too many McHamburgers,
And he thinks that porn is the best piece of ass hes ever going to get
And he thinks that his hat isnt quite perfect enough
And he thinks he's too short 
And he thinks he's too small
And he thinks he's no fun
And he thinks his heart is black
And his bank account is always two steps behind
And his home is a hole in the ground
And he thinks his skills have a limit
And his prospects are blind and too selfish to treat him fairly
And he thinks his past is too tainted
And his family is too ignorant
And he thinks that he's too weak to break free from any of it even though he knows that it's all fucking bullshit.

Tom hates himself because he relies on the excuse and habit of hating himself as a reason to wallow and not push his limits and not risk loving and not really live.

Tom hates himself because he knows better than to hate himself, he knows that he loves, and he knows that what he loves is what he is.  Its inevitable.  Its human nature.  

Thereby the concept of self hatred is flawed and impossible... an oxy moron of hating to love while loving to hate
​... a trick to the mind to distract from the heart the inevitably infinite and all encompassing existence and continuum of love.

For any of you who may not have had a chance to watch the last SPELLCAST episode, check it out!!  Best SPELLCAST episode yet!!  Janette Sarah Anne (that's me!) is casting real spells for real world situations :)  If you have any spell requests for the next spell casting, please feel free to leave them in the comments section.  <3 

Super excited to introduce my new youtube spell casting channel.   Check it out!!!   JSA :)

Sunday, June 10, 2018
As an entrepreneur I live with an almost constant nagging of feeling the need to get more done.  I've spent the last couple of years investing a lot into my art and my business; investing time, money, learning, risks; following every opportunity whatever the cost, trusting that somehow it will come back to me.
Sometimes, with the natural ups and downs of feelings and life, I sometimes wonder if I'm not suffocating myself with deadlines and expectations with no return on my investments in sight, and I find myself asking; "what did I do all this for?"; the challenges that I've had to bust through to continue as the free flowing art form that I Am...
...and every time, the answer to that question brings the downward spiralling thought forms to a screeching halt as the beaming truth of my heart's calling gently lingers; touches it's fingers, in an ever presence that has shaped my life and guided my choices; for me, my horse, Padre.
And in that moment I realize that in my doubt and anxiety, there's only one thing to do; put on my riding gear, tack up, and head for the hills.
We have, in this society, so much pressure to do, to be, to acquire... it's so easy to get caught up in all of it and forget the reasons why.
Today I rode my horse, Padre, and our (mine and Padre's) other horse, Shiro, came along beside us on her rope, and my dog Cloverbelle, too.
We rode across fields and up mountains and through sage, until we reached the rolling meadows and wildflower valley where Indian horses run free.  
Today I felt that freedom in our strides as we galloped in sync to the hill top, emerging into the sky beyond, overlooking the town, clouds of silver mist washed over the view in front of us, we stopped to take it all in, and then we continued on; Padre's hoof beats resounding beneath me, Shiro kicking her feet, throwing her head back and running beside me, the wind in my hair and cape, the silver glow of the sky on my face.  
I thought to myself that this moment, this feeling, that's what I'm doing it all for, and so long as I can keep these moments close, I will always know my purpose, and I will always find accessible It's infinite inner drive.
So, what are you doing all of it for?
Don't get caught up.  Don't forget.
For most of us, we work for something that we already have; the parts of us that we cherish the most, that we don't want to lose.  Keep them close and the rest will follow.  Just like this blog that I've been putting off writing for months; I thought I had writer's block, but the truth is, I forgot what I was doing it for.  I needed only to refuel my heart and my soul.
Descending the mountain, across the fields, through the sun it started to rain, I looked back over my shoulder to the path from where we came; and behold a perfect rainbow, winking it's eye, whispering my name.

I had a spiritual awakening on October 5th, 2002.  It was right before my 27th birthday.  I didn't know then what an awakening was, I didn't know what was happening to me.  I had been depressed and I was having seizures.  I went to a Buddhist meditation class for three days, I had never meditated or thought about it, I partied and worked.  I wanted to try something different because I wanted to get better and I didn't want to take medication.
When I had the awakening everything changed.  My perceptions changed and how I experienced things.  It was such an intense bolt of energy through my body, it made me very sick, and very sensitive.  The stress of the incident forced me to stop working for a year, and so in that time I lost my home and went into debt, but I knew things that I had never known before.  I knew that I could feel energy and that it was this energy that all things were made of, that it was all connected.  I committed myself to the meditations although I was doing them alone then because a lot of days I couldn't walk to make it to the class and they kicked me out for poor attendance.
After one year I slowly integrated myself back into the workforce and tried to get my life back together.  I felt more purposeful and wanted to get out of the city.  I was living in Vancouver at the time.  I wanted to get back into horses.  It was the only thing that I knew I wanted.  
I moved to the Sunshine Coast as I felt drawn to the community there and felt that my heart was somehow rooted there, perhaps from another place in time.   One month after I moved there I was sexually assaulted by a man I had just met who offered to give me a ride home from a party.  Although by this time I had managed to do enough meditation and psychological work to stop the seizures, the shock of the awakening was something that continued to give me physical challenges, along with neurological damage already happened from 18 years of epilepsy, and the assault on top of it, it's a miracle I didn't give up.  When I was faced with the moment of being physically restrained with a knife in my face, I checked out in a way, my mind split, and I disassociated.  I spent many days sobbing and shaking on the floor not even knowing why.  I directed a lot of anger towards the community, because although I didn't realize at the time what I thought, I blamed them.  
There were times when I would observe myself as a mess on the floor, and I would say to myself; "something's not right here, Janette, you should do something about that", and would convince myself to get up to write.  Every time I picked myself up off the floor, it was only to write a poem, and then to write music to play along, and it turned into songs, which after a year I thought I should perform them, I quite liked them.  When I put them all together, I realized that they wrote a story, the story of what had happened to me, and it demonstrated how somewhere in my subconscious, the things that I had learned from having had an awakening, were speaking to me, and helping me to get through everything.
I decided to put the songs and poems together as one story, as my story.  I called it; "I Survived the Deletion", because social networking had just become popular, and so many people deleted me, because I was angry and I raged at them.  I hope those people can know on some level that it wasn't really them that I was angry at, it was the situation, it was how I coped with a lot of things that I was dealing with which at the time nobody knew about.
Over the years "I Survived the Deletion" evolved, I became more gentle and creative, and really integrated the piece as a cathartic process.
After a year and a bit of being on the Sunshine Coast, I realized that I had been disassociated in my own mind, I recognized that it was the assault, I reported it and came out to the community about it, and I fled to the Okanagan, taking with me one very special prize, my horse, Padre, whom I had been working with in Robert's Creek.  He lives with me now on my friend's beautiful ranch in Oliver, British Columbia, where I have done amazing rehabilitation and training work with horses.
Tickets for the performance of "I Survived the Deletion" on May 14th in Vancouver have started to sell.  All proceeds will go to the Old River Ranch Horse Sanctuary improvement project.  Much appreciation to those who are able to support and attend. 

​It was interesting working with Velvet and Padre today.  Velvet arrived a couple of weeks ago and has really done a successful job at getting Padre's hormones fired up.  Velvet is very much a queen of the throne kind of mare who likes to swing her head and swish her tale and claim her space.  She has a lot of energy with quick and sudden movements, she is trained nicely to ride english with a soft leather bitless bridle.  After working with Velvet for a the first time with no big surprises, I thought I would give Padre a whirl in the round pen and work on us galloping circles bareback.
I've had Padre for almost ten years.  He is my heart's calling and dearest friend.  We're close emotionally as much as one can be with an animal, and we've had adventures, we've been up mountains, in rivers, at ranches... basically just riding, playing around.  He did alright loping circles while I rode him, and since we always do that, I thought I would try some ground work with him, just me, him, and the lunge whip, which isn't actually used to whip the horses; it directs them, you use it to guide them like a very long extension of your arm, and they make great sounds that can really get a horse moving!
Padre did all the usual things, run, walk, trot, stop, then I thought I want him to walk towards me.  He would not walk towards me.  I even had treats.  He wanted to go see Velvet, and who wouldn't want to see a horse with a name like Velvet, and I realized that as long as I was giving Padre free choice, even though we were still in session in the round pen, he would not pay attention to me, he had no interest.  This is not good horse/person relations when you are working with a horse.  The horses can be attentive, respecting your position as teacher; a horses chances for best quality of life increase when they can respect their person and teacher while being in the realm of domestication.  Domestic horses who do not respect their person, generally are more dangerous, and when a horse is dangerous their chance of being cared for in a loving home decrease, along with their chances of doing all kinds of fun horse/human activities.
I realized that when Padre was listening to me, he was moving out of fear and obligation to the lunge whip and my movements which were driving him forward.  I wanted him to listen also when I was asking him to come to me, with no gesture of force or obligation, other than the fact that I was asking him to.   I decided to use the lunge whip to direct his body a little bit as it's long enough to reach behind him even while I am standing in front of him gesturing for him to come towards me.  He freaked, racing back and forth against the fence rails trying to get away from me and towards Velvet, while I lunged from side to side not allowing him to get out of the space with which I was able to draw boundaries with him.  He eventually stopped, I was able to get him turned around facing back towards me, and we repeated the whole process about 3 times while I was asking to myself "is he ever going to get this", and then the fourth time he just did it perfectly.  He trotted around the round pen, as I asked him to walk and then asked him to turn in towards me and walk to me, he did so with perfect attention and no hesitation.  I wasn't expecting it so suddenly perfect like that, I met him with a hug and a treat.  Padre tests me, but in the end, he always lets me win, he has never beat me at anything, and so we have the perfect balanced horse/person relationship that can be safe and limitless.  Anything I want to teach him, with focus and perseverance, I can teach him.  This exercise today helped me see how much more limited I am because of the habits I have maintained with my horse over time, and it also helped me see the endless potential.  I love my horse, and with him I want nothing less than for both of us to thrive.
Tonight when feeding the horses, I was letting Padre out to the river to graze.  We practised our exercise of having him walk towards me when I gesture for him to do so... he did, but he wanted to charge past me at the gait, and when I asked him to back up he spun around and bolted around me, and so I kept circling him and we did the walking and stopping and backing again, until he let me win, and I allowed him to walk gently past me to the grass.  I love that he will test me every time, because it shows me that he does not lose his spirit.  I love that he gets a little mad every time and kicks and bolts and protests, demonstrating his strength and what he is capable of, only to give in, reminding us both every time; the depth of understanding between us, as person with domesticated horse, the surrender of power to the greater power that IS, which allows us to live in harmony, such the rewards that come to us both from that.
I gave Velvet and Shiro hay, first asking Velvet to do a little recap of the ground work that we did in the round pen also.  She flicked her tail, she swung her head, and so I held her head in my arms, asking her to bend her head towards me as bending at the pole of the neck releases tension in a horse.  She did relax as could be observed because she dropped her eye lids and started chewing, but every time she relaxed, signalling that I could give her the space to proceed humbly to eating, she threw her head at me like "how dare you!", and she didn't let me win.
Currently, as I write this blog, Shiro is eating hay, Padre is eating grass by the river, and Velvet is tied to the fence post.  Cowboy always said; if a horse won't let you win, tie him to the fence and let him contemplate life for a while ;) 
It's so strange to me sometimes, with horses, it's a game of dominance and then respect.  It always has to be.  It's the language horses speak.  It's how they survive amongst each other in the wild, it's their nature.  I wonder sometimes what is it in me that is so attracted and attuned to this game of wild nature.  It lights me up, it gives me energy; invigorates and satisfies.