THE NO BULLSHIT WAY TO FINDING THE REAL YOU! Guaranteed to work: WORK being the operative word!

If your life is narrated by a religion, but you are still tormented by your mind,

it is not working.

If your life is narrated by sexual escapades, but you're still unsatisfied and lonely,

it is not working. 

If your life is narrated by shopping but you still feel unfulfilled,

it is not working.

If your life is narrated by drinking every night (because deep down you long for a tribe) but you still feel lonely in a room full of people,

it is not working.

If your life is narrated by health issues that you can't seem to control, but you keep thinking you can (but it's been years....),

it is not working. 

If your life is narrated by your emotions, and you don't know how to handle them so you avoid showing them or you feel guilty and confused,

it is not working.

If your life is narrated by the voice in your head and all it says is negative shit,

it is not working.

If your life is narrated by work that makes you sick and doesn't inspire you,

it.is.not.working.

The more your life is narrated by anything other than a connection to your soul, God, your inner voice, Mother Earth, angels, Jesus, whatever, fill in the blank, the more you will never, ever find the peace you seek.

We are all yearning to feel unconditional love.

Imagine, just for a moment, you are surrounded by a group of people that are sober and eager to listen to the next thing you have to say.
They deeply care about where you are in your heart and in your head.
They deeply care about how the hell you feel today. Why?
Because when you feel unhappy, they feel unhappy too.  
When you feel like the world is overwhelming you, they notice.
When you feel like you want to scream, they hold up the punching bag.
When you feel like you want to fall apart and cry, they hold your hand and cry with you.
All this energy that is in us, must go somewhere.  
Tears are streaming down my face as I write this,
 as I think about all the people I know, here, that are suffering
and I want to help you.

Enough with the mantras, enough with the daily readings, enough with the lists and posters and bullshit signs that say, "in this house we...".  Fuck that. How do we actually get from how shitty I feel right now, to feeling like I actually want to be here.    It starts here:  FIRST 

You need to put down the cell phone (after you're done reading this of course) turn off the TV and go outside.  

We are not separate from nature.  We are nature.

 Remove the walls, remove the floors, remove the shoes, remove the clothes if you can, and just lay on the earth.  Dig your fingers into it.  Smell it.  Lay on your back, lay on your front.  Put your ear to the ground and close your eyes.  Listen to your heart beat in your own ears.  Breathe deeply.  If you feel compelled to say something, then say it,  scream it, cry it, laugh it.  But if you stay there long enough, emotions will start to appear.  This is grounding in the most natural way you can and it is what is causing us so much stress because we just don't do it.  It's an incredible place to begin your journey back to yourself.  The one you might remember from your childhood, that played on the earth, in the dirt, in the sand and the water.  Jumped off rocks, laid on rocks, threw rocks into the water and built statues with them.  That magic that you once felt as a kid, when you let your imagination go, go there. THEN Ask yourself, "What Do I Desire". Then day dream.  Dive into whatever glorious things your mind can imagine & don't judge it.  What do you do naturally all the time anyway?  When you're out with people or meet new people what do you talk about?  What do you always do? I always end up touching people somehow, giving them a huge hug, a cuddle, a massage or a foot rub. I usually end up fixing something on their tablet or computer too.  It makes me happy and I'm good at it!

This is just the beginning.  When you can connect with that fuzzy feeling in your belly, deep down, then you are on the path to living the life you are here on earth for!  As a wise woman told me, "Follow the Tug".  When you feel something ignite that energy in your body, don't stop! Don't Judge.  JUST GO!  Do it, do whatever it is, no matter what it is! Make it happen! The rest will follow.  (As will Part 2 to this post)

With massive gratitude today, to be able to write this!  MWWWA!

Ari

x
If you want to know more about the grounding and fasting I have done leave me a comment :)

The Day My Last Piercing Left Me

All I can think of is the part in Lord of the Rings when it's implied that the ring has a mind of it's own.  It "leaves" Gollum, bouncing away to a place where it knows it'll be found by Bilbo.

On March 2, 2017, I removed the barbell from my right breast nipple. As I slid out the last remaining piece of jewellery from my body, it felt strange. I had mixed emotions. It had been there through so much.  15 years feels like a long time.  When I think about what I was like when I first got it done, showing it to my ultra-religious trans-Atlantic "boyfriend" the week after I got it done when I was in the UK.  I'll never forget his face.  Total fascination.  I love being a conduit for people to have an experience that they've never had before.  Getting a glimpse of a lifestyle that they are afraid to explore, opening their mind to new possibilities.  It's always a rush.

A year ago I had an unfortunate incident with my other nipple barbell and an unfinished door frame, so that's when it decided to leave me.

My second nose piercing always getting caught on my shirts and not being able to really scratch my damn nose during the winter just made me feel like it was more of a pain, so out it came.  You really don't realize how often you do things, like scratch your nose, until there's something there to remind you.

My two tragus' were my favs, besides my nipples.  People always commented on them and they were discreet enough that I could get away with them at work.  I had a hard time taking those out, partially because I liked them so much and partially because I just couldn't actually get the damn bead off. I ended up having to use tools to remove one.


Before that, the Rook left me.  I remember getting this one pierced vividly, it was probably one of the most painful for me.  My boyfriend at the time was awesome when I wanted to change it to a stubby barbell.   Laying on the kitchen floor in total agony, he pushed it through to the next size up.  That pain was bad!   In hindsight, he wasn't afraid of much, and that was a quality that I didn't value as much as I would now. 

The usual lobe & upper lobe piercings and the helix, gone.  What are we up to, eight on the ears, two on the nose plus nips, twelve.

My bellybutton lasted the least amount of time because I went swimming in a lake right after and had a job where I wore a duty belt that sat right on it.  Infection plus chaffing equals glorious failure in the piercing department. Thirteen.

Then of course the all mighty "clit" piercing, which let's just clarify, is not actually that, although some people apparently do. The piercing is through the little hood that protects it. That piercing lasted a whole 2 weeks because what 18 yr old can go a month  (the recommended time) without having sex.  Are you kidding me?  We barely made it back to his house. 

14 times a needle has been pushed through my skin.  Fourteen times a metal object was shoved in after it.  The experience is very interesting and probably very different for everyone.  I enjoyed it.
The preparation, the anticipation, the adrenaline. (huh, my nipples just got hard writing that)  Hopefully the person doing it was confident.  I found men and women to be equally bad or good at it.  In my experience, some were steady handed, they'd seen a thousand vaginas and nothing phased them. They'd be joking about giving you a two-for-one deal if you pierced something else while you were there with your pants off. (True story) Or there's the guy who bumbled around like he was stoned, only to end up piercing on the wrong angle so the jewellery didn't sit properly, resulting in a gross infection.  (also a true story, just not mine)

What keeps bringing us back?  What causes us to have these urges for pain & adrenaline every once in a while?  What do we gain from decorating our body with jewellery?  Is it sexy?  No, it's gross. There's shit that comes out of piercings, it smells like...I don't even know, but it's nasty.  Not to mention, you really don't realize until they are gone, how much energy it takes making sure they don't get caught on stuff.  I can finally relax!  Too bad I'm single now and rolling around naked in the bedsheets with someone isn't even on my agenda...but it will be fun when it happens! 

On some level, they become you.  So when you make that decision to remove them or they decide to leave you, you feel a small sense of loss.  A little piece of you is gone, never to be the same again.  When I sit quietly & really feel into my body, it feels like it's saying thank you.  
I can relax now, no need to worry, energy is flowing unobstructed and it feels fucking fantastic.  

Ari 

x

Who is Ari Boon? And Why Am I Sitting Here Giggling

I love this.  I am sitting here typing in the dark in my bedroom that I'm totally in love with.  The incense burning makes me smile and breathe deeply because it smells so.damn.good.  It's called Buddha.  I am sipping a mini mug of Peele red wine, leftover from a bottle I took hiking yesterday and poured into a container.  (You can't bring glass into Algonquin Provincial Park, y'know)

Right now, I'm happy.

I just created a name to write with that I really like.  It has depth and meaning behind the letters.  I took all the letters of my real first, middle and last name, googled a site that tells you every possible word made from those letters (used only once each) and voila!  As I'm scrolling through the 1500 or so words, some of them shock me.  ABORT was one of the first to pop out at me.   ANNOY,  ANTSY, ARISE, and ARMREST.  Okay, so that one made me laugh.  I become aware that all the words I was noticing were words that had some immediate meaning for me.  Words that I had experienced, heard directed at me, or had the voice in my head say about myself.  Most just seemed to flow by.  As I keep scrolling I see more words, like BARTER, BONES, EMBRYO (oh boy, this one's not going to let me get away).  I'm not even at "F" yet and already I can sense a theme.  I start to see that this little exercise that I thought would help me chose a pseudonym to write under is actually pointing out how I'm thinking all the time.  If you've read "The Secret" or "The Law of Attraction" then you will be familiar with the idea that we are all constantly sending out a radar that is scanning our surroundings for the things we are thinking about, bringing your attention to it, therefore attracting it to you.  The classic example is; you want to buy a new vehicle.  You look them up, do lots of research, maybe take it for a test drive, it's a big decision, so it's on your mind a lot.  You're driving around, taking the kids to school or going to work and now, everywhere you look, you see the vehicle you want.  You never realized so many people had them!  Even ones that look similar are all over the place now!  What the hell!?  In reality, you've been driving past the same amount of those vehicles the entire time.  The difference is, now you have your attention on it.  You mind has this incredible autopilot program that runs in the background, behind you getting coffee on, getting the kids to school, working out, making lunches, studying, driving, whatever it is you do everyday.  You inputted, "NEW VEHICLE: MAKE, MODEL, COLOUR" into your radar and your brain is now scanning for that everywhere you go.  You can be deep in conversation with your mother in the car and you'll notice another one!  You weren't even looking for it.  Or so you thought.

This is what is happening to me too.  As I'm scrolling through the words, the ones that hold meaning for me are popping out.  Ones that have significance, good or bad in my life, are popping out.  It's getting me thinking.

EROS, INSANE, MISERY, NANNY, RAREBIT (I do love my cheese)

Wow. Okay, okay, dial it back here.  So many stories, but why, I ask myself, are most of the words that keep popping out at me, negative?  Perhaps my internal radar is tuned to negativity and I don't even realize it.  Or perhaps I haven't let "IT" go enough yet, or maybe I am supposed to write & share about those things first.  Who knows.  What I have learned from this though is that I really need to start putting positive things into my brain, getting rid of the old crap that doesn't serve me and fill it back up with love and happy stuff!  I'm starting with: day dreaming more!

I'm happy writing this. I chose a name to share all my secrets with.   I still have a cheeky smile on my face and a feeling in my stomach like I want to laugh.

And just so you know, upon second scroll through, these are some of the other words that I liked:

Brainstorm, Emotions, Innermost, Irony, Moonrise, Omen, Taoism, Tomboy, Yeti
and who's going to have
Yes No & Maybe all in their list!

Excited to share,

Ari

What does your list of words say to you? Click HERE to get your list!

Want to see what I saw on my beautiful hike? Click here for link to Parks Canada & Ontario Parks