Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Motivation.
Phoenix Rising
I have left the wolf of darkness, at least just for today, inside my heart back in the dusky hollows of my soul space. Today, if only just for today—I am the phoenix. I said 'falcon' aloud but it feels right, I am at least halfway certain, that my fiery wings have grown back. Like Lucifer, I took a hard fall from grace and was bathed in blackness; like Icarus, my wings melted when I flew too close to the sun and I caught fire. The wings that crease my shoulder blades are small, still spreading, testing plyometrics, pliability, buoyancy, air flow. Colorless, invisible to the naked eye. In the spirit realm I stretch one out, feeling the ache of disuse for far, far too long. The other swings out as I flex my latissimus dorsi, feeling the dual wingspan of the bat-wing, the angel-wing—both of my wings. Both sides of the same soul, returned to me. The muscles are ready to work on finding an updraft, playing with the pitch and yaw of how high I soar—and yet, it is not time for the flames to fully find my ignited spirit, Apache Mama and the other fire deities waiting anxiously for the coals to smolder, smolder to kindling catch, kindling catch to a slow controlled burn of past consequence, breathing my air, my oxygen, clean and mostly pure. Until finally, eventually, any day now—whoosh—I am engulfed in the fires that have cleansed my spirit, that have burnt away the oil-black sludge of the Dark Passenger's hold on me. My skin scorched by the desert sun but not yet burned. My eyes enlightened by the last light, the lusted-after stare into the sun that took my sight once, twice, thrice, before it made me blind to the truth. But now. But now I can see clearly, or at least in the light of the 'Real.' The phoenix is a burning cycle, as understood through mythology and the ancients. I have reached the end of my cycle, dove feet first into the inevitable crash, and now—and now, it is time to pick myself up and rise.
By Andy Reed7 years ago in Motivation
Just Do It
"If you can't beat fear, do it scared." Lately I have been forcing myself to do the little ideas I get in my head that I usually shy away from; the things that are not hard to do; the things that just seem pointless or silly because no one else is doing it. When in reality I could be the leader in the situation and truly encourage human beings to step out of their shells and go ahead and do what makes them so them. I can imagine you’re wondering, “what in the hell is she talking about?” So I’m going to give some examples.
By - Karaedan -7 years ago in Motivation
Pondering Existence
Recently, I have faced death. Not only in my family with the death of my beloved Nanna and then Aunt two weeks later, but also within friends’ lives as well—not necessarily being human; family can also be your pets or those close to you that you consider family. I have witnessed the death of two of my friends’ very loved and faithful companions this week. It appears death has begun to rampage our world. The pain I have felt in the last month, and the pain that I have seen in my friends’ lives has left me pondering how fleeting life really is. How short our life is in the span of the age of time itself. When a loved one passes, in our pain we begin to question life itself. What are we here for? What is the point of our existence if life itself is so very fleeting? As someone who suffers with PTSD and depression, these questions, and many similar, flow through my mind consistently. I remember quite recently toward the beginning of this year, I penned the following paragraph. I was in a dark place, having recently had a medical scare.
By River Garman7 years ago in Motivation
// BEING (Almost) 18 //
Wow. It's almost here. I'm 2 days away from being 18 and I don't know how to feel. I know that more opportunities are going to come my way in life and I know that more things are going to open up for me—my world is my oyster at this point. But still. More responsibilities. More time to manage.
By Lauren Day7 years ago in Motivation
The Dust of Our Bones: Pt. 2
All of life was held within the stretching breath of a moment and there was no room for questions. It was all settled inside like sun rising every morning. This was life and all was as it should be. Childhood unraveled in the rhythm of long summer days and wondrous winter nights and abundance was found simply in what was before you.
By L M Anderson7 years ago in Motivation
How To: Go Back to School at Your Very Best
As someone who attends a highly competitive school with less than 500 students total, I get my fair share of depressive emotions that make me want to dwindle into another world as the beginning of the year inches closer and closer and my summer of doing nothing slips away.
By L7 years ago in Motivation
A Wave at a Time
Have you ever stared out into the sea for what seems like hours, yet the only thing that we focus on is how big it really is. I mean, really big, never ending. We stand there flabbergasted at the fact that this massive body of water, containing millions of life forms underneath the surface where nobody can even see, just goes on forever. We try so hard to see farther than our eyes are letting us, why can’t our minds do the same? We can sit for hours and think about the endless dreams and goals we want to achieve, but the truth is, it ends with us.
By Kylie Hartwig7 years ago in Motivation
How to Get Motivated: A Review from Experience and Pro Tips
We’ve all had ups and downs. And sometimes when you’re down, you feel like you can’t get anything done, like you’re always tired and simply don’t want to do anything but lay in bed, watch Netflix, and eat your body weight in snacks.
By Nathalie Fernandez7 years ago in Motivation
Introduce Yourself
What does it mean to be whole-heartedly ourselves? You can say that you have "found yourself," or that you are "uniquely your own," but how do we know what that even is? Everything we’ve absorbed and maintained has been things that we’ve seen, that we’ve heard, that we’ve accepted as ours.
By Marissa Rojas8 years ago in Motivation
The Event
When I talk about “the event,” my narrative sounds strangely like Kevin Spacey’s “there was a lawyer…” yarn in The Usual Suspects. Unlike Verbal Kint’s tale, my event was as real as a Kobayashi coffee mug. You see… there was an event in April of this year that changed me. The event’s catalyst doesn’t matter, or even where the event happened. What does matter is I was someplace on a Sunday afternoon, and I began to sob. We’re talking at the funeral of everyone you’ve ever known boohooing. Had I been a professional mourner, this performance would have gotten me callbacks for the next couple of years. Through the black tears that were leaching off my equally dark feeling soul, I concluded I had made some grave mistakes in my life.
By Brian Kannard8 years ago in Motivation
