Jen Tyes's Blog

I have recently began formally studying systems thinking. Systems thinking is a discipline of interconnectedness. For example, human anatomy is the study of the physical body system.

This is a technical piece so bear with me as my analytical mind flow…

I have always been a systems thinker, but I never had a name for it. One of the characteristics of a systems thinker is personal mastery, which is the discipline of personal growth and learning. It’s a person who goes beyond competency and skills who also approaches life from a creative viewpoint. The two most important points is that when you practice personal mastery, you are continually clarifying what’s important to you and continually learning how to see reality more clearly.

I recently had a conversation that led me down the rabbit hole of interconnectedness from a religious point of view. Without taking you too far down the rabbit hole, the conversation was about how if God is the creator of everything, then all that exists is because God deems it so. The world is so focused on putting people into categories and attaching value based on a set of social standards is contradictory to God. For example: many religious people find fault with transgendered people. They label them as wrong or confused. But ability to change gender exists in nature and God created nature before he created us (Gen 1:20-31), so how can God be wrong? Also, if God is love (1 John 4:7-13), and he loves all his creations, and God is within all, wouldn’t we be denying God if we deny his creations? If we are perfectly made by God (Psalms 139:14), shouldn’t we all be enveloped in love by one another?

Religion is just one of the ways we limit our awareness of reality. I think it’s becoming more prominent but as a world, we are lacking in the personal mastery discipline. Many people clarify what’s important to them personally but fail to continually see reality more clearly.

We are all connected. There is scientific evidence that Africa is the cradle of civilization and modern women can be traced back to mitochondrial Eve. We require bees to help grow our food. We need trees to help with our respiratory system. We rely on everything for existence, some reasons known, and some yet to be discovered.

Having the ability to internalize knowledge to transform your internal belief systems and align your mindset with reality breaks down our limitations, and further closes the gaps we have in our collective knowledge.

Let’s continue our growth. What are some interconnected systems have you noticed and can share with the world?

The story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a profound story about reality and acceptance. It’s a cautionary tale about what happens when we chase validation and interfere with reality instead of changing the source.

I read a quote: “Mirrors don’t chase reflections. They simply exist, and truth appears.”

Mirrors exist in a neutral state. A mirror can’t change an appearance, it just shows us what is. Many people avoid looking at or attack the mirror because they don’t like what is reflected. But others use mirrors as a way to self-reflect and adjust so that they are completely aligned with themselves.

A mirror teaches us a great lesson. It tells us to accept ourselves. Gazing at our reflection slowly reveals our most authentic selves. The point is not perfection but the acceptance of every part – good, bad and ugly. Once we accept all our parts, we can show up in the world with objectivity and with no desire to chase approval from others. No matter what is reflected in the mirror, it is truth and is the current state of ourselves.

The reflection isn’t always the same. As we go through transformations, the mirror reflects back at us our newest reality. In every reflection, the change is to the source – the self, and not to the mirror. The only way to have a different reflection is to not fight reality, let go of the need to control, look at what’s actually appearing and adjust.

In Snow White, the stepmother’s magic mirror started telling her that Snow White was the fairest of them all. Instead of looking within and finding her own truth, the stepmother attempted to eliminate Snow White and change reality. The stepmother was too focused on being loved and liked by others and didn’t love and accept herself. She couldn’t face her reality so she aimed to destroy others to satisfy her ego.

There are mirrors everywhere. I hope you have the courage to look in a mirror and love and accept your reflection.

When you read the above quote, what came to mind?

New Year’s Day has become my day of binge watching The Twilight Zone. There is something about the short episodes where Rod Sterling introduces us to a scenario and welcomes us to the Twilight Zone.

I don’t know about you, but the world has felt like the Twilight Zone for some time. Even so, I still enjoy escaping to Rod Sterling’s creation.

Episode eight of season one made me think about what I’d do if I were the last person left in a post-apocalyptic world.

Here we have the main character struggling with the loneliness of being left behind. He is first grateful for the abundance of food he has now that everyone is gone. He quickly escalates to wanting to end it because he is overwhelmed by lack.

Just before he joins the rest of the population, he notices a library. This is where I perk up and my thoughts start rolling in.

I love to read. I learned through Covid that I am completely at peace with being by myself. Yes, it would be difficult without another person to talk to, but I would probably find comfort in the fact that I could get lost in the books for the rest of my life.

I’ll spare the ending of the episode- it is the Twilight Zone. My question to you is what is something you’d look forward to if you were the only person left? Would you be able to survive having no companionship? what are some things you have been putting off that you would have time to do after the world end?

When you have the answer to that question, ask yourself what’s stopping you from accomplishing that now?

Whether you put it off due to not having time or you’re doing it but not as much as you wish you could be, I ask you to make time for yourself.

The most important relationship you will ever have is with yourself. We have been conditioned to give so much of ourselves to others that we leave little to no time for ourselves. It would be a shame that an apocalypse would have to occur, leaving you as the only person alive before you have the time.

The good thing about the present moment is that you can make the time. The character in the episode unfortunately didn’t get to read the books but you can put yourself first and do everything you’ve not had the time for before.

What will you spend your time on today?

In this life, there are socially constructed rules we must follow, and others that keep us in a cage. As we enter into a new year, I can’t help but reflect on 2025 and what I’ve learned and applied to my life.

I have always made it a point to be my most authentic self, but over the past year, I have come to understand what that means. I find it challenging to follow social standards when they run counter to who I am. I have been learning new ways to choose myself without feeling guilty about not considering others in my decision. A better way to put it: I am learning not to be a people-pleaser.

For so many years, I have put the needs and wants of others before my own, and it has caused so much pain in my life. I felt incomplete, drained, and puppet-like. I would say yes to things that I would later regret. I was told that I needed to accept people in my life, even if they don’t make me feel safe. I was told how to act and how not to act. It affected my mental health, and that’s how I knew things needed to change.

Every day, I practice ways to reclaim myself. I set an intention for my day. I align the day’s activities with that intention. I take a moment to consider requests before I respond, so I can ensure what’s being asked aligns with my intentions and the direction I’m heading in life. I evaluate the relationships I have and make sure I am giving energy to those who are prospering, communicate improvements to those who are not, and let go of those who no longer serve a purpose.

My practices are not easy. It’s challenging to let go of people and things that once held value when their seasons are up. But I can genuinely say that I have never felt more peaceful and happy in my life. I burned to ashes as a phoenix. This was maddening, but the gift in the process was that the cage I was in also burned. So now I rise from the ashes and reclaim who I was always meant to be.

Your path is yours and will not look like mine. The point is to be you and live this life as the person you want to be, not the person that others choose for you.

Happy New Year! I hope you find practices that help you reclaim yourself. Be you, always.

Be wary of people who expect you to change your life for them but don’t even hesitate to change their life for you.

Be wary of people who mock or belittle your truth yet expect complete understanding of them.

Be wary of situations and spaces that require you to make yourself small.

Be grateful for every experience because they have all led to who you are today.

Be grateful for your scars. They tell your story of perseverance.

Be grateful for every day. It is a beautiful thing that you have the opportunity to start again.

Be you.

Be authentic.

Be your truth and never shrink to fit anyone’s definition of you.

I have just finished reading “Just an Ordinary Day: The Uncollected Stories” by Shirley Jackson, and something occurred to me.

This novel was a collection of published and unpublished short stories that Shirley Jackson’s family found and allowed to be published. One thing that stuck out to me was the nature of the situations and common themes that were prevalent during her lifetime.

Many of the stories featured details of the lives of women from that time period, and it struck me that we are still entrenched in some of those same archaic beliefs.

Shirley Jackson lived during the 1950s and 1960s, an era when many women were housewives. Reading her stories let me into the past: how people thought, things they believed, their clothes, and their actions.

I noticed that many of her stories featured strict decorum and judgment of others for not conforming or for being different. This led me to look into movies and other literature from that time period. I detected a common theme. As a society, we have taken pride in our ability to be programmed. Another way of putting it is that we have made “fitting in” a societal standard.

Think “American Dream.” We have built our way of life around traditions, and anyone who does not conform to these traditions is viewed as being inferior. We’ve made some concessions, but the mindset is still stuck on fearing difference.

Why does racism still exist? Fear and tradition. Sexism- Fear and tradition. Classism, colorism, ageism, ableism, and homophobia: we fear what we don’t understand and refuse to understand based on the historical context of traditions.

It’s easy to ignore or hate something that is not like you, but why would you invest the energy? No one can meet the standards of our traditions. We are all different and should be appreciated for who we are, not how well we can fit into a rigid box.

This is a call to action. The next time you find yourself judging someone for their difference or lack of societal conformity, ask yourself if the world would fall apart or end because this person is different, and if there is harm to you or the world in this person not fitting in.

Have you ever heard the saying, “It broke my heart but fixed my vision”? There are some situations and people we come across that fundamentally changes us and challenges our way of thinking, feeling and being. We sometimes allow ourselves to be wrapped up in something that we should pull away from only to find that in the end we’ve broken our own hearts for staying too long.

Let this be a sign that now may be the time to recalibrate your vision. If you’ve ever used one of those virtual reality headsets, you know there is a button that you can press that will straighten the view to face to whatever direction you’re looking. Sometimes we find ourselves going down the wrong path. Sometimes we are mixing with the wrong crowds. Whatever the case, we can always take a step back, face the direction we want to go in and recalibrate to that path.

Change is the only constant. We are allowed to change direction. We are allowed to change our minds. It doesn’t matter how much energy or resources we give toward something, the waste happens when we continue doing things we know won’t be fruitful.

We have the opportunity to learn lessons from every experience in life. Recalibrate whenever you feel you need a change and keep pushing forward.

If you read my posts from two/three years ago, you would notice the expression of a severe personal struggle. I was stuck on the “Why” of what was going on in my life because it was difficult and upsetting to accept reality.

Being weighed down by “why” kept me in the past and it kept me from manifesting the life that I actually wanted. The reality is, people will do what is most comfortable and beneficial for them. These actions can hurt others with or without them knowing. The reality is life is full of struggles and those struggles are meant to provide growth opportunities to propel your life forward. It is up to us individually to use reality for forward or backward movement in life.

I choose to move forward. That struggle taught me that “why” doesn’t matter. I learned to look at everything at face value and pivot my actions, feelings and life to align with the face values that honors my authenticity. I will never know the truth behind the actions of others and situations that come into my life. My truth is to use the knowledge that I do have to make decisions for myself.

Manifestation can be defined as the action or fact of showing an abstract idea. If you are manifesting life, you are aligning yourself to an idea that eventually become fact. Whatever you want for your life, you need to apply pressure and focus in order for you to get what it is you want in life. If you want to be a doctor, you can’t just say “I want to be a homeowner,” and expect to become a homeowner. You need to be continuously present and look for those opportunities that will lead you down the road to becoming a homeowner. What are the tangible steps that you need to take? Once those steps are taken, what are the specifics of what you want? What are the things, the “Whys” that you can ignore and continue to push forward?

Manifesting life efficiently is difficult in a world that tries to give us roles to fulfill but remember, your life is for you and you are in the driver’s seat. What will you be manifesting today?

I noticed I started saying people were “a product of their environment” more often and it got me thinking.

There are people who believe that early programming is so engrained in them that there is no other way to live. I met people who, when I ask them about what they want in life, they tell me but then tell me the reasons why they can’t have it. The reasons are almost always connected to trauma, upbringing, environment they live in, etc.

In observation, it feels like people get trapped in a mental cycle and delusion that all that exists is what they have always known. What’s “comfortable” and known is all they deserve.

A friend was telling me about someone he knows who grew up in the foster care system and witnessed abuse growing up. This person has great ideas for changing the outcome for their children but still focuses on the subjects, systems and people who keep them as products of their environment. When my friend talks to him, all he hears is “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.”

I believe that whatever you choose for your life is what you choose and I have no judgements. It makes me sad to see people with dreams not able to see their dreams through because of fear or the inability to shape themselves into whatever they want to be.

I use the words “product of their environment” not as a judgement but a way of describing how someone chose to carry forward in life. We are all products of something. You can be a product of social media, intense drive, corporate America… it just means the person you are is shaped by what you let soak in to create your personality and world.

Change is very difficult, especially when you can’t see what life will be like with every decision but the best thing is, you get to decide to change again if you don’t like it.

Look at your life and ask yourself, am I a product of my environment or am I creating my world to be exactly what I want it to be for my peace and happiness.

Be a product but make sure you’re a product of something you love.

I hope you are creating and loving your life!

I fell in love with zombies when I watched George A. Romero’s The Night of the Living Dead. There something strange yet familiar about the dead waking up to feed off the living.

Within my love of zombies, I talk about my readiness for a zombie apocalypse. I know the zombies we watch are products of science fiction and for entertainment. But there is a real zombie apocalypse I don’t think I could have ever prepare myself for.

As I make my way down the path of inner peace and alignment, I am noticing more and more, the voids all around me. I am surprised every time I learn about another low vibrational way of living. This post is about the living dead.

I classify the living dead as people walking this earth without using their emotional and spiritual body. They walk through life without intention, motivation or inspiration; expecting everything to come to them without work, manifestation or heart.

The living dead sees those living as a way to get what they want. They don’t have empathy nor the ability to make decisions, make plans or succeed in life. They are stagnant in their energy and find ways to bask in their lack of progress.

In my opinion, they are less harmful than energy vampires but can be just as damaging. They don’t mind telling you the tales of their woes but for soft hearts like mine, you can easily get sucked into their world, trying to help them see other ways of existing.

What I learned is that is not my job to save anyone but myself. The living dead can have you out here looking for a cure for the disease all the while draining you of your life force. But I know that all interactions should have mutual levels of action with compassion on both ends. It hurts me to know that I can’t help everyone. When I do try, I need to remember not to allow myself to be harmed in the process.

Never let someone pull you down. Not everyone want to rise. Some enjoy life just as it is but if you are growth minded like me, but I’d say, always rise up to the light