Change and Growth
Centered
By Amanda Jenen
At your center what matters, what's strong?
When life knocks do you answer,
Do you let the wave sweep you along?
Do you question and practice, do you strive to be better?
Do you exist because it's easy, or do you live because it's hard.
Do you choose to do more, or to simply do enough?
And Then Some
By Amanda Jenen
What does it mean to live in the moment?
It means to apply the past, learn from it but not live in it. It means to plan for the future, to have a focused goal but to maintain the flexibility to change and adapt as needed.
It means taking responsibility for your life, your decisions, your effort. It means making a determined, and deliberate choice to be the best version of yourself everyday.
To learn and grow everyday, in each moment. It's noticing how to improve, how to be kinder and more authentic with people.
It's optimizing your efforts on the most important tasks. It's maintaining focus and avoiding unnecessary distractions.
It's accepting fear as part of the process and choosing to have courage to keep going despite the inevitable failure and pain you will encounter.
It's never giving up... and then some...
Transformation
By Amanda Jenen
I knew this would hurt when I started this path.
Because growing is painful, you're removing the chaff.
Shedding the old self, like an opaque serpent skin.
The new surface is brilliant, like there is light held within.
The new self emerges, raw, yet stronger, renewed.
Not far off from the old, the same color, a different hue.
What was hard before is now done with ease.
New struggles fill their place, in like a hurricane, out like a breeze.
This cycle of change, this pressure to grow.
To be better each day, to know more than you know.
Pain is a part of this process, there's no turning back.
You can give up, then it's over. Or you can grow to fill what you lack.
Where will you be if you choose to give in?
Stagnate, a seed laying dormant, waiting for light to begin again.
Yet continue to fight, to push through all the strife.
To be better each day for the rest of your life.
How strong will you be? How beautiful and rare.
To have braved all the fire, to have chosen to dare.
No one but you knows the cost of this choice.
Will you have cause for regret? Or cause to rejoice?
Change
By Amanda Jenen
I know change is inevitable, its endless cycles, its subtle ways.
It tricks you into thinking that you have it held at bay.
As each new day passes, it works its magic spell
So small, sometimes you barely notice
The difference hard to tell.
One day you look back in wonder, how can so much happen so fast?
With each new experience changing you from who you were in the past.
Although you may not notice, it will happen anyway.
For like time, change is a constant that we live through every day.
The Problem Is With Me
By Amanda Jenen
Keep fighting the same battles, over and over. Losing ground each time.
Don’t know why we are not learning, makes me want to cry.
Am I upset because we’re failing, or am I blinded to the growth?
Am I so focused on the effect on me, that I can’t see past the end of my nose?
If I shifted my perspective, and changed the way I see.
Would I still feel like I’m losing, could I find a different way to teach?
Perhaps I could be more helpful, I could find a different path.
I could focus on what others need, I could take a big step back.
Then instead of seeing failure, I could find a different way.
To help us all improve, so we can get better day by day.
Is the problem that we’re not learning, or is the problem that we can’t see?
As far as I can tell, the problem is with me.
Justification
By Amanda Jenen
I just want people to care as much as I do, is that too much to ask?
Just simple understanding, that this is more than just a task.
How can I help them? How do I make them see?
That what we take for granted, or deem trivial affects so many.
All the moving pieces, every grain of sand,
Each one matters, they’re all a part of the plan.
How can we stop the bleeding, can the damage be undone?
Can you teach the blind to see, can the battle ever be won?
Do I lower the bar, or keep fighting through frustrations?
Keep removing the decay, and shoring up the foundations.
There must be an answer, something I haven’t tried.
Maybe the solution, starts with banishing my pride.
Climb
By Amanda Jenen
How do you know when you’ve reached the peak?
Do you gauge by your heartbeat, heavy breath, body weak?
Is this just a stop on the climb up the hill?
Where you catch your breath and summon your will?
Can you tell by your progress, by how far you have come?
Or the view right before you, the movement of the sun?
Do you see a path upward, indicating the journey goes on?
Or a vast open sky, brilliantly colored by dawn.
At the peak there’s a choice, start back down, or fall
More effort, more sacrifice, or an end to it all.
A Thousand Drops
By Amanda Jenen
Can I hold it all, every tiny grain?
It feels like dodging drops of rain.
Inevitable to spill, unavoidable to get wet
Walking a high wire without a net
Which grains matter, how can I tell?
They all look the same, pennies in a well
Perhaps like the rain, on drop alone can’t soak
It’s a thousand at once that make you choke.
Streched
By Amanda Jenen
Held together by the thinnest strands
A tug or a pull, and the connection will end.
Frayed edges and worn-down pile
Stretched so thin, tearing slowly apart
Can it be pulled back together?
Is there any hope for my poor heart?
If its possible to someday mend,
Will the brightly colored patterns, be recognizable again?
The colors may stay, but the pattern is lost
The damage inflicted carries a cost.
Yet, perhaps a new pattern will emerge,
more beautiful and complex.
This beauty only possible through the act of being stretched.