I was seconds away from pulling the plug on Facebook for a variety of reasons and now I am thinking….my amazing network is too precious to turn my back on. But none the less, serious change is in the works for me! I will be doing my best to spend a lot less time “socially networking” and a lot more time plugging myself back into this wonderful life I have. It is really easy when the tidal wave of life overcomes you and you forget so easy all of the good…. for me I end up seeing only how badly I have messed my life up. But dammit….I won’t stand by and let that happen! I am a fighter and always will be… so like any good fighter, I had to get up and realize what I was fighting for!

And you know what…my instinct is to feel like my problems are pathetic and I should never complain because some people have it so much worse than I do. And you know…..I think that is BS….I think my problems are very real to me. Yes technically if we compare ourselves to others…some problems are worse than others… but truth is, if your problems effect you in deep ways….then they are real and need to be taken seriously. We don’t need to feel sorry for ourselves, but be aware, it’s real as real can be and they need to be addressed if you want to grow and move forward. Don’t think you can just dismiss your issues, they will be back unless you figure out how to fix the root. Will power is weak in my opinion… you need real change in your life to fix real problems. Sometimes we need a new plan, then start working harder than you ever have…. and allow yourself to grow and move forward. You might fall again tomorrow or next week, so really….just be thankful today and do your best tomorrow. Take one day at a time and we can see this through……

Again… thank you for the encouragement to all that took the time to say something! It means the world to me!

Yes I admit I haven’t had the easiest time in life. I had 3 different dads growing up, I was adopted twice and went to 9 schools in 12 years. I never learned to make friends and became extremely shy and introverted. There were times in high school I went into the bathroom at school and spoke out loud just to hear my own damn voice because I was literally a ghost. I did not exist. I’ve seen physical and mental abuse at home to my mom and myself. Hell honestly I stole from stores, neighbors and anything I could get my hands on just to feel alive when I was growing up. I even got caught shoplifting as a little kid, caught stealing a bike as a teen and was caught stealing mopeds as a teen as well, and that is just what I was caught doing…it was endless what I actually did….. it goes on and on and on…. I wanted to be happy so badly, but I didn’t even know how to smile or laugh.

I saw alcoholism in my family really bad and swore I would never be like them. I didn’t want anything to do with popular people or anything the world thought was “cool”… they didn’t want me, so I sure as hell didn’t want them. Yeah I know it all sounds morbid and fucked up… well, honestly it was. But somehow I managed to become a decent person later in life despite it all. I know I am so far from being functional…. but damn… can you blame me?? I am the first person to say that excuses are bullshit… I hate them and try my best not to use them…. but you know what… I am struggling to be a human being here!

I love my girlfriend very much, but sometimes you just need to vent… and she doesn’t deserve to hear it all the time….I honestly don’t know how to talk to anyone else…. I feel so pathetic sometimes. Seriously, before I killed my marriage…most of my life I literally felt like a child that stopped emotionally maturing at age 14….I could not relate to adults at all. I’m not into sports, everything that a “man” was supposed to be I learned from watching my 3rd dad…… what a fucking joke! He represented all things manly….and I was none of them…I was intelligent and thoughtful. I respected people and had deep feelings…. I got it all wrong from the start.

Well here we are, now I am finally an adult.. I sure don’t feel like a kid now. The last few years took that from me, and I blame no one but myself. But now I need to pick up the pieces of a very broken life and learn how to live among humans. I know most people…as if someone was reading this… wouldn’t completely understand what I’m even talking about or what I have gone through. I have always felt like it was wrong to just complain… but now I just don’t care…. I need friends, I need a counselor, I need an income. I am a great photographer but a shitty businessman…. I have so many things to work through.

But man, I’ll tell ya, I am a good person with a good heart! I would do anything for those I love. I have made an absolute mess of my life, but I am determined to fix it and make it right. I am working on a relationship with god…I have been for years. But I feel so much sadness and guilt for being so bad at life sometimes… I just don’t know…. one day at a time I guess. I am still so so beyond thankful for all of the good people in my life.

For most of my life I wanted someone to say everything was ok. I wanted someone to tell me all of my fears and doubts weren’t real. I wanted to be “normal” so bad. I grew up an extremely shy introverted kid. I had a hard time relating to anyone, especially “happy” people. The world around me didn’t make sense. My life was tossed around a lot and I learned to deal with it my own way. I had a certain sense of hope and posibility that one day people would see me for the amazing person I knew I was deep down. But truth is, most of my life, I was invisible and no one knew me or cared. All of my affirmation came from myself…and I felt I was strong enough on the inside…that that was enough.

Well after I discovered photography and started shooting models…I found myself getting good at something for the first time. People all of a sudden started paying attention to my work and giving me this long awaited affirmation. The monster was created and I found I no longer wanted to give myself this affirmation…. I needed more and more of this attention all the time. I craved it like a drug. Then my life took a dive and fell apart once more. Financially I fell very hard and of course my marriage ended. My affirmation disappeared  although this time I wasn’t strong enough to give it to myself.

Fast forward to today and I am still craving it. I obsess sometimes and feel like I am nothing when people don’t seem to care….. I have a false sense of friends too…I mistake people wanting to work with me for friends and get very down when my unrealistic expectations are not met.

But today I feel like for the first time I might be able to work through this and turn this around. I need to beat this monster before it beats me. I am worth something and my work is damned good. I am a great friend to the people who choose to see me that way. I know I need to make changes to continue chasing my dream and not the affirmation of others…. but hey, admitting where you are is the first step to recovery. Now I just need to get walking down a long road to self love and a higher purpose. Sometimes we get lost along the way and just need to be reminded of what is truly important.

I feel very hopeful!

As an artist I am growing every day and learning what confidence means to me. What success looks like and how wrong I have been most of my life. I have always looked at the world around me and thought they all had it right….I was wrong. Very few have everything right or even more than I do. The fact is, we are all searching for our meaning and purpose and some never even find it. So lets face it, we get caught up in pursuing things in life that don’t even matter in the end…. all for the sake of happiness and the pursuit of.

As I grow I begin to take a new approach. Live MY life the way I believe it is right for ME and the ones I love. I have always been a problem solver for others, full of advice and ideas. But when it comes to me.. sometimes I feel like I don’t deserve good things or somehow my advice doesn’t apply to me. Truth is…I can’ fix anyone. I am here to give any advice I can… from my own humble opinions mind you… but in the end, I need to fix me as well as accept myself for who and what I am.

I am an artist with my own amazing ideas and ways of thinking. I am more creative than I give myself credit for and capable of unbelievable things in this life. We all are in fact. We need to look at the world as an example…but then we need to focus on our OWN path. Nobody can walk my road for me and I can never walk your road. I can share my path with you…but you may or may not understand it. And thats ok…… we have the liberty and freedom to be ourselves in all of our glory. No matter what that means. Be thankful for who you are and what you do….. you were created exactly the way you were supposed to be. Embrace your true nature and never stop growing!!

I have always hated the way I look… my body is never what I wish I had. I have always felt very insecure and never felt like a “real man”….I know I have my step father to blame some. He made me feel like I was less than. He was tall, dark and handsome and somewhat muscular with dark hair…. of course I was adopted and had blonde hair and fair skin. I looked to him to learn what a man was supposed to look like…. of course I was nothing like him. I was more intellectual and not very handsome…. at least this is how I saw it. But now I am realizing… this was not true at all!

So here I am later in life making the changes I have always wanted. I am exercising and taking control of my thoughts. I am learning to love myself and realize I am a fantastic, good looking guy…(in my own way). I don’t have to fit any standard… I get to make my own standard now. I am growing so much and loving what I see!

Here is a photo to mark my progress… this is roughly 6 months of half ass work. Now its time to step it up a notch… I believe I can do this!!!

I have tried many things and honestly I have had success at several of them with a lot of very hard work and a pit-bull mentality. Examples include… a very very long 18 year marriage.. (until of course my divorce….not necessarily a failure…more of a complete life change… separate issue all together……), teaching myself to play the piano and guitar and of course my photography. Although, somewhere in my mind, I still have never really tasted success. I am beginning to believe a lot of this is actually a mental defect…its just not true! Just because things don’t end up with my unrealistic expectations, doesn’t mean I failed… it just means, I have learned to see things the wrong way and expect way too much from my situation.

Take this blog/ self challenge for instance… we weighed ourselves today and I have literally lost 10-12 pounds since the beginning of the year! That my friends is a success!! But in my mind, I feel like I set out to write every day on this Frozen to Fearless 366 day challenge.. and like usually I have stopped for a good couple months or more in between the start and now. I cannot look at it like this…. I must believe regardless if people read this, if I see results, if I write every day or even if I get great results….. I CAN and will reach my goal of a six pack by the end of the year, as well as fix my way of thinking about everything in my life in the process. I am understanding more and more…. it is not really about the reality you see before you, it is the reality you create! I am tired of excuses and am ready to make my own future, despite my doubts and fears and the nagging mentality…. “it didn’t work before, so it won’t work now.”

So if you are with me… or even if you are not… thanks for coming along on this long lonely road. When your mind is broken, things don’t always make sense. But together we will get there, one milestone at a time!!

Inspiration is fantastic and important I feel,… but, leave it as that. Learn to be happy with your journey and your life the way it is now and work toward a better tomorrow. You have to work damn hard sometimes to get to where you want to be. Let’s face it, most of the time the people we admire, obsess about, wish we were more like… work very hard to get where they are. Oh I know, some don’t…it just seems to come to them. Well that’s ok, congratulations to them. But if you don’t have what you want, then go get it! But it is so important to stop living in some future tense or some other life that just isn’t necessarily what was meant for you or I… at least not at this moment in time. And this moment is the only one that really matters. You are not promised anything in life. Tomorrow may or may not even come. But you do have this moment… this life you have been given.

So, lets applaud the amazing style, lives and accomplishments that others work so hard for! Lets start focusing on what are we going to do, to make our lives exactly as we want. And even more importantly… realize, you are amazing right here, right now.. as you are. Your life is a gift and you are lucky to have what you do have. We often take it all for granted. Now ask yourself, as I am…. what will I do with this amazing gift I’ve been given, and how can I work hard to make it the best it can be? We can do this!!

I am a photographer for those that don’t know…and as an artist I am disappointed as well as inspired sometimes at the sheer number of images being produced on a daily basis. It used to be that you could come across an image or an artist in real life before the internet and be so impressed…you might even find a book with someone that truly changed your life. It might stay with you for days, weeks or even years. Now, you can surf thousands of images in seconds from all over the world and not really give any one of the most amazing ones…. 5 seconds of your time. You think to yourself…. how can I get people to pay attention to me…or I could do that… or I’ve seen better. Heck, you might even go so far as to pin it on Pintrest or hit “like”…………… well, just food for thought. Again, I am a self involved artist and this is merely my opinion.. so I could be way off…. nothing new:)…..

ON a positive note.. I have been having so much fun shooting every day and just got done running with Adrian down by the ocean. So awesome!! I have also lost 2 inches on my waist since I started this blog….wooooo! I am starting to look and feel so much better…. so LOOK at me….haha….. maybe the secret is to stop thinking so much about ourselves and start giving it back to the world. Because I don’t know anything about you… but I am so lucky to be me!

Well people…here is how I have been turning this entire life around. Its called effort! You have to want to change so badly that you cannot tolerate your old ways anymore. For me it was change or death. Literally…. I chose to turn my life around, one photo… one scary effort at a time… It is not easy or fast. But you have to force yourself to do what scares you and slowly but surely it won’t anymore. I know it seems like an overly simple solution…. but truth is…. it is as hard or as easy as you make it. For me, its been a slow but increasingly getting faster road.

I think finding something I truly love, like photography, to do and focusing enough energy to get good at it, has helped me tremendously. And yes at first, like anything new to you..you go overboard, you might do it wrong, you might come across all wrong to people that don’t know you or understand what you have to go through…. but that’s ok. The key is to be yourself at all costs and let others be whomever they are….. you will never be them and they will never be you. Embrace who you are and you will find peace in your heart. And who knows, maybe you will even shine…..

I can already feel the exercise making me feel more alive and accomplished. Something about running really restores your energy. I also think just the sense of doing something you set out to do helps you feel great!

So now as planned, it is time to follow the new schedule and get a bunch of editing and creative projects done today. Life is what you make it… don’t like your life? Then do something about it….. your choice.