Connected and Committed

wattle and dob

meeting a stranger

We die to each other daily. What we know of other people is only our memory of the moments during which we knew them. And they have changed since then. To pretend that they and we are the same is a useful and convenient social convention which must sometimes be broken. We must also remember that at every meeting we are meeting a stranger.

from T. S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party

This happened to me yesterday.

In the morning, I was one person.

And by the afternoon, I was in a completely different frame of mind. I attribute this particular transformation to listening to an especially resonating new Abraham cd on the way to work, and to recent energy transfusions I've been exchanging with a particular person.

I was blissed out and sure of the universe's love for me on a level that I've visited only a few times, briefly. I could see the next logical steps to take on several projects, and I could feel limiting beliefs dissolving away.

This session lasted a few hours. Thoughts and realizations zinged across the sky of my mind like so many falling stars and shooting comets, and with as much stunning pyrotechnics.

Never mind that Target doesn't carry the underwear that I wanted to buy anymore. Never mind that several locations of Cost Plus are closing in my area. I was unperturbed in my blissmongering.

Right here is where, in the past, I would have begun grasping at the vapors of this experience to try to make it stay, last as long as possible, duplicate it, bottle it.

Not this time.

I know that it will be back, and it will be better when it does, just like this one was.

When peace of mind opens up its arms and takes you in (or more accurately, when you open up to it), the relief and the ecstacy is astounding. No wonder we want that to hang around forever.

But what's left after it's gone isn't the enemy. It's more bliss. Cuz it just is.

That's the crazy thing about this enlightenment stuff. You race around pursuing an end that you fabricate in your mind, and what you're looking for is right there, inside, all the time. Even when you're convinced of the opposite.

It doesn't care how long it takes you to figure it out, either.

It will wait as long as it takes.

Here's to dying to yourself today.

You are magnificent because....

It's my experience that it's always been easier to tweak these bloody limiting belief gremlins where they live and kill them with kindness in others more so than it is to do it for myself. So while I constructed this list in response to turning around someone else's negative self-talk tapes, I'm thinkin' that my subconscious will soak it up too:

You have transformed what was once perceived as a devastating loss into one of the most perfect gifts to yourself that you could imagine.
You have always honored the creative goddess inside you.
You are so much more than the waifs you don't look at anymore on magazine covers.
You have abundance all around you, and you see it every day.
You honor your needs by changing your mind as each situation warrants it.
You speak your truth.
You are allowed to make mistakes and learn from them.
You honor your capacity for stimuli and what feels right.
You allow your feelings to be.
You fight the good fight of staying awake to what the culture would have you asleep for.
You know on a cellular level that life begins at 40.
You don't buy into artificial standards of worth any longer.
You shine when the time is right.
You are drop-dead gorgeous.

who I really am

Couldn’t concentrate worth a damn today. And it wasn’t because I was thinking about “him”. It was because I was thinking about “me”.

This is it, right here, where I meet the mother of all limiting beliefs–-in relationship. Based on previous experience, (some) men leave, and it’s because of something that should change in me that makes that happen. Well, I know better now that yes, it is something in me that needs to change, but not to get them to stay, because obviously they weren’t who I am supposed to be with, that is clear.

What needs to change is how fully I show up as who I really am. Period.

Who I really am knows that there is no value in fear.

Who I really am knows that should this not last, it was not meant to, and that my casting director is always busy lining up the rest of my life for me as we speak, tweaking and adjusting as I change and grow.

Who I really am knows that “he” is practically craving that I show up that way on a soul level, tickled to death that he is honored to have such a fine partner to play with.

Who I really am sees this opportunity and runs with it for all I’m worth, holding nothing back and leaving nothing out.

Who I really am thinks this is about as much fun as a soul can possibly have.

Who I really am understands the value of receiving this gift.

Who I really am is delighted that I’m catching up to her with this experience, as she’s been eagerly anticipating this meeting of the soul-body-mind for a very long time.

Who I really am sings the body electric.

the first day of the rest of your life....

The best year of your life begins today.

-- Alan Cohen

************

Yeah, it might be January 1 today, but that psychological line in the sand doesn't mean much to me. It's Christmas and my birthday and New Year's Day every day pretty much, which is why I like the sentiment in Alan's quote. It's a more palatable spin on that phrase from the 70s, today is the first day of the rest of your life. Which is true - I guess the backlash was for the new age haze that hangs around it. As a matter of fact, it's really the first second, or the first minute, of the rest of your life, all the time, since any time an epiphany happens, there you go again being a different person.

And that word "best" - that's a potential eye-roller too, but whatever. To borrow from Keri Smith's latest blog entry, "Some days don't you want to shout out loud, Wow, this is an amazing incredible trip! I can't believe that I get to wake up everyday and get to do it all over again. fuck yes. Let me experience all of it."

Fuck yes.

the intersection

I'm at the intersection of so many trails. Adventuresome, wild, exciting trails that have looped around and meandered awhile, taking their own sweet time to evolve from blips on the radar into full-blown experiences, revealing how they would eventually intersect and complete a map for me to trace their commonalities and marvel at yet another fabulous casting job done by the universe. How does it weave everything together in such perfection? A rhetorical question, one that I don't really want or need an answer for. Just professing my awe and admiration for what is.

Someone was supposed to call me last night and didn't. And I am so OK with that, the path that will be forever abandoned, so that others, and more appropriate ones on all kinds of levels, could be pursued. As well as taking a meter read on what conspired just before, to get a sense for what isn't welcome in my experience.

Putting together a personalized curriculum on a topic, I've been reading and internalizing and wondering where in the world I might apply it all. Yesterday, an idea floated to me. I could almost see it before it got there fully in my consciousness, like a cell from a movie thread that was coming closer and closer until lifesize and ready to pop.

Relationships with people who are fully alive and inhaling their lives with pleasure and a demand for quality and quantity and delight keep appearing on my plate, and that is sooooooooo gratifying. Finding others who want to play too - it just doesn't get any better than this.

I'm in the Wall Street Journal

Down at the ver-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-y bottom of an online article, the result of some random Google search engine the newspaper employs, I'm sure. But it's pretty cool.

I know, I know

"And you just cannot afford the luxury of sloppily looking anywhere the loudest bell that is ringing is asking you to look, and at the same time practice the Art of Allowing."

I know, I know, I know.

Sloppy thinking wreaks havoc in escrow land. Sometimes it's soooooooo tempting to slip back into a feeling whose detrimental effect has clearly been established - why is that? What is it about a familiar feeling, even if it's a negative one, that brings so much perceived comfort? How can a chemical trigger in my neuro pathways be so actively working against my best interests?

Fortunately, I'm not up to indulging this yearning in feeling land - it's just not worth it. The bell doesn't retain its original decibel levels, so the siren call isn't as compelling as it once was. With a wistful last look, I turn and walk away into the sunset, preferring to further entrench a trail in new territory than navigating these old useless ruts again.

Sigh.

freebird

This morning on my way to work, in the surge of early morning rush-hour traffic going in the opposite direction on a three-lane suburban interstate, I saw a dude on a motorcycle riding his bike vertically. His grey sweatshirt and nondescript helmet belied not a Harley fan but a plain ol' biker Joe who was rockin' out to some inner joy that he felt like expressing in that moment in the perfect way. I turned around to watch him as far as I could before the twists and turns of the highway blocked my view. He was nearly airborne for at least half a mile. I wish I had been among the lucky ones to share the road with him so I could have taken his picture, or at least tried to.

Rock on, dude.

doors

Half the time, or better than half the time, when you think you’ve taken a wrong turn, a door opens that is a better door. It’s a new door you didn’t have access to before, because you were so oriented in the other direction.

--Abraham

************

Bless the door that has its own.

Watch for those doors, the ones that look like, hey - what the heck - THIS isn't what I ordered!

Oh, yes it is.

And at some point in your future, if you're smart, you'll be in a gratitude trance about this very thing, or person, or circumstance, because of how it's rocked your world in absolutely just the perfect way. Of course, this is all down the road, but it's there, just the same, waiting for you and your vibe to shift.

So shift already.

Give yourself access.

And watch the doors open.

feeling good, feeling right, it's Saturday night...

And now it's Sunday morning, bright and crisp, and I feel fabulous.

Last night I invited a friend to dine with me at a small, local place that I had never been to but had read the menu posted outside - organic items caught my eye, and they have a coupon in the area Entertainment book.

So last night was the night to experience this place. Oh. my. god. it was incredible. The decor is sort of funky modern retro - old photos of Marvin Gaye and the young Steve McQueen and Goldie Hahn amidst the old tin squares on the ceiling painted a frosty grey/gold, an antelope skull above a faux mantle, pale blue walls. Beautiful dishes and silver on the table. A cute Rob Lowe look-alike for a waiter. A sample of bruschetta brought to the table, just because. Fried brie with Michigan cherry dipping sauce for an appetizer. Sea scallops with squash and some kind of heavenly spinach concoction painted on a rectangular white plate. Dessert was raspberry and mint sorbet - the flavor explosion of those two intensities mixed together - well, it now resides among the pantheon of sensory sensations that rock my world, like the guava body butter that makes my eyes roll back in my head.....

Then we grabbed some lawn chairs and walked down to the members-only lake access near my friend's house and watched a beautiful sunset. A neighbor dog was swimming and kept coming over to us and splashing us as he swished the water off his body. Another dog on a nearby dock kept jumping into the lake - maybe 18 times, one after another. Feeling his joy made me laugh each time.

Then some top shelf TLC, and dreaming. Dreaming is a very good sign - of relaxing, of trusting, of truly resting.

And now it's Sunday morning, and I feel fabulous.

I just can't shake it

It was a Tuesday.

There was a feeling in my gut that I couldn't shake.

Sifting through my thoughts as potential distractions, it still wouldn't budge.

No matter what I threw at it, it stubbornly held its ground and seemed
to enjoy the experience.

Knowing was in the house. Bliss, in as much as could be tolerated
in a corporate setting, was in the house. Contentment was in the house.

My body moved differently. My day was phenomenal. A perpetual smile was on my face.

I wondered what had gotten me here, and how do I repeat this
as often as possible?

I retraced my steps. For one thing, I had engaged in some very satisfying physical exercise
the day before - riding my bike with a good friend - at an intensity level in which I don't usually
partake. I was proud of the effort and the results.

Secondly, I had had some very pleasant conversations with a new friend over the course of
several days, during which I totally showed up as myself and was appreciated for same.

Thirdly, I had exchanged some focused feedback with a former boss who swears our
discussions are like therapy sessions.

Fourthly, I was wearing a new blouse, a solid, tawny, deep chestnut, henna perfection,
and my color vibe was singin'.

The joy-puller music I've been playing for weeks, and the thoughts
I've been coralling on purpose over there so I can focus on the ones over here,
all of that has parlayed into the total effect as well.

In my mind, it's no accident that I'm dwelling in this particular piece of real estate
at the moment, and I have to say, these here digs are mighty fine.

They are the perfect basecamp from which to poke my nose, to go out and discover,
to see what is around the corner, to revel in all of joy's various packages.

I almost didn't write this tidbit however. I almost didn't share this newsflash from euphoria.
I almost didn't broadcast what is oh-so-good.

I almost fell prey to the mentality of lack.

Who wants to listen to all this happiness stuff? Won't it just foster bad feelings
in people who aren't in the same place as me?

But hearing me gush about how great things are in my life is what
my part of where I touch the world needs.

Finding evidence of abundance and joy is exactly the ideal contribution.

There are others who are looking for these breadcrumbs to feeling
so good, you almost want to puke. They want to hear these words, so I wrote them
down for them.

For all you Hansels and Gretels of the new age, I salute you.

And isn't this dark chocolate windowsill fabulous?

chair

OK2BEME

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I have no idea why I am such a whiney whiner at the moment, but I am. Could be the sub-zero temps inside at work, contrasting with the hotter-than-hades temps outside. Balance, moderation, please. The kicker indicator that not all is well - my shopping expedition to Whole Foods, there was no bulk oatmeal nor granny smith apples. None. How can that be? Where is my stuff? Waa-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a. My alignment must be way-y-y-y-y off.....

I wonder if it's because I didn't listen to any music all weekend. At all. Hmm....

Via magpie girl's site: here’s some ideas for dealing with the Small Bloggers Blues:

1. Take a break from your site meter.
2. Redefine success for yourself. List all things your blog does for you (fosters gratitude in your life, helps you hone your craft, organizes your thoughts…
3. Write yourself an affirmation. I like this one: “My story matters.”
4. Reach out to another small blogger. Take this feeling that you have about being discouraged or not “not mattering” and take it as a cue that you need to reach out to others who are feeling the same.
5. Join the SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL google group. (I’ll link to it when it is available.)
6. Follow a comment you like back to the commenter’s blog. You’ll probably find an inspirational read from someone who shares your values.
7. Tag your posts with your name (or nom de plume) and your blog name so like minded souls can find you.
8. Remind yourself that you are writing for an audience of one. Make yourself a sticker that says “I heart authenticity.”

I like this list. It contains wisdom gleaned from magazines targeted towards women for obsession about weight, and dealing with depression, with a cyber twist. Don't focus on the numbers. Get out of your head and into someone else's heart. Do it for you. Do it for you. Do it for you. Be yourself, and the audience will follow. Or not. It doesn't really matter, as long as you are having fun and the tool doesn't become the vehicle for your life. The idea is to get out there and live it, so you can benefit from reflecting on it. Commenting on someone else's blog will make THEIR day. Give the thing you want to get. There's more than enough to go around.

There. I still want my oatmeal and my granny smith apples, but I feel better about their absence.

paint

forgiveness redux

Questioner: I was reading something that Wayne Dyer wrote, that if you don’t get past forgiving and resentment, you can forget about getting to a higher spiritual level. How do you know when resentment is resolved, or how do you know that you’ve forgiven?

Abraham: We like to tease everyone, especially him, by saying you don’t have to offer forgiveness if you’ve never condemned to begin with. And the Source energy part of you has never condemned.

But let’s talk about this—you’re really going to like this … if the Source within you is one who loves, and that is the case, and you have yourself focused upon something where you’re feeling resentment or unfairness, injustice, and you’re all balled up over it, what that means is you’re looking at that situation in a way that the Source within you will not look. So the feeling of forgiveness is the feeling of relief you have when you start turning downstream and you start seeing it more like the Source within you sees it. So those are really accurate words because until you come into alignment with who you are, you cannot achieve that enlightenment. We want to remind all of you that enlightenment is not something like a college degree, that once you achieve it is yours forevermore; it either is or it isn’t in the moment, depending upon what you’re doing with your vibration.

So isn’t it logical that, since you are a lover when you’re loving, forgiveness isn’t an issue—it’s alignment. But if you are hating, now you’re upstream, and you’ve got to turn back toward love or forgiveness.

But we don’t like to use the word “forgiveness” because “forgiveness” sounds like taking something back. And you can’t ever take anything back. Instead, we would like to call it redirecting the vibration of your thought into alignment with who you really are.

And so your forgiveness—in essence, you weren’t so much forgiving someone for what they did as you were finding a way of looking at it that allowed you to align with the way your Source sees it. So interesting, because it feels like it’s about what somebody else did, but it’s not. It’s always about letting yourself be who you are or not.

You are a lover, and when you are not loving, you’re not who you are. And so, many would say that when you forgive, then you are who you really are. And we say it’s not forgiving that makes you who really are, it’s looking at it the way your Source energy looks at it that makes you the way you are. And you’re right—your Source energy will never condemn anyone.

– Abraham-Hicks, Buffalo, NY, 5/29/07

********************

Oh, how I love this. I sometimes stumble when I try to explain to people how forgiveness is a gift to yourself, a relief from maintaining that vigil of reproach and spikey weapons and ill will, the stuff that saps your energy and keeps you trapped inside a bubble of slime. Forgive and forget really means forgive and look over there for awhile instead. You don't really ever forget, you just decide to look at it differently, to save your sanity, such as it is, and in that is a sort of forgetting. At least not a constant deepening of the ruts on the ol' neuro pathways. It's posting a notice that this thing or this person no longer is going to occupy your thoughts rent free. It's just time to move on.

And that feels soooooooo good.

This watcher, this obesrver, this inner being, this higher self, who is always riding shotgun - once you look over, shake hands and re-introduce yourself (well, they always knew who you were, it's more for your latecomer benefit), and start looking at the roadmap together........you're on the ride of your life.

a liitle bird told me

I didn't even notice this little bird until I started messing around with effects in the photo editor. LOVE. THAT.

sunflower

nudges 07/20/07

I am so happy and very grateful for:

1) Having a boss who is cool about working from home - thank you, thank you, thank you!

2) A beeee-ooo-tiful summer day with which to enjoy said working from home;

3) The cable guy who said he downgraded my service, but as of this writing, I am being charged for limited and receiving basic;

4) A son who is so lined up with who he is;

5) A man who lives in my apartment complex with a little two-year-old daughter. His patience seems infinite, his monitoring never wavers while she plays with other kids, and I salute his solitary duty;

6) A man who is taking his daughter on vacation after a long absence between them. I salute his intentions and his awesome parenting;

7) A man who was going to be taking his mother on a short vacation but instead found her on her kitchen floor, injured and needing intensive medical care. Love and light to both of them;

8) Creative juices when they flow--after they ebb in that fallow period;

9) Manifesting a great deal on my lease renewal on my apartment. They appreciate good tenants, and I appreciate good landlords;

10) An imminent financial transaction that will make eighteen years of socking away $60 a month the cumulative gift to myself that it is;

11) Technology that allows me to communicate and radiate out to people I've never met but feel connected to through an umbilical cord galaxies long;

12) Honoring my gut and saying, "No, thanks," when appropriate;

13) A free weekend.

soaker seats

If you've ever been to Sea World, you know that when
you go to see the performance of the killer whales (a
spectacular display of leaping majesty), the lower
down in the amphitheater you sit--the closer to the
so-called soaker seats--the more likely it is you'll
get wet. When you sit in the upper part of the
amphitheater, you have an entirely different
perspective of the proceedings. You aren't directly
involved, and you can see the whale beneath the
surface before it launches itself miraculously into
the air. You can see the moment when the body of this
enormous creature floats for a split second in the air
before the laws of gravity return it to its natural
habitat. And you can watch the disturbance in the
crowd below as soaked humans shriek, leap up, grimace,
and shake themselves off. It is possible from the
upper levels to observe the full dynamic of the
process--and not get the least bit wet. This is what
the watcher allows too. You observe and you understand
what's happening, but you don't get lost in the
emotional reaction.

When you engage the watcher, it's as though you are
split into two characters. The part of you that's
seated in the soaker section--we'll call him Hey!--is
getting totally drenched by the whale as it hits the
water. Hey! is experiencing the shock, the fear, the
frustration, and the discomfort of the soaking, but he
is also not doing what he would normally do: jumping
up out of his seat and yelling at the top of his
lungs. Meanwhile, the other part of you, whom we'll
call Be, is seated high up in the amphitheater,
looking down and watching the soaking as it happens.
Both parts are communicating with each other
throughout the proceedings. From time to time Be is
asking Hey!, "What are you experiencing right now?"
and Hey! is giving reports to Be of all the thoughts
and feelings that arise as he sits there in tension,
overriding his reflexive impulse to leap and shout. As
the water settles back down, Hey! discovers that he is
unscathed but for the wetness. With the assistance of
Be, he has put in place new conditioning that
contradicts the belief that to sit still and not react
as usual might be life-threatening. The old belief is
thus drained of its power.

So when you find yourself in life's soaker seats,
allow your watcher to head for higher ground and take
a look at things from that position for a while. It
will allow you to see the more complete picture. The
wetness--those emotional reactions--you are
experiencing is only the result of one of your inner
killer whales--your conditioned patterns--rising above
the surface and making a splash in the middle of your
life.

This is where it is absolutely crucial to remember
that the world isn't doing all of this stuff to you.
It's your show, taking place in your amphitheater. And
so when you shift your state--when you calm down, slow
down, and head for higher ground--so does your waking
dream because it always perfectly reflects your inner
state. This doesn't mean your life is completely uneventful.
There can still be lots of stuff happening, but you aren't
upset by it because you are able to look down on it rather
than getting soaked all the time.

Sarah Susanka - not so big life

******************************************

This is very interesting to me, this shapeshifting the watcher part of us. It's interesting because I have always known my watcher. I can't remember a time when my awareness didn't split off into two distinct regions. More time and energy than I would like was spent focusing on the soaker seat pespective from early on, but there was enough of a presence there from the upper seats that I have movies in my head of many, many childhood and adulthood moments, from outside my body, watching the memory from above. While it has occured to me that other people do not share this aspect of their psyches with me, it never really sunk in until reading this section of Susanka's work how many probably don't.

I call it a blessing, then, to have this perspective at my disposal, now more often, than not. I can attribute massive swathing of old neurpathways to its presence, and my life has become less populated with killer whales because of it. But f@!k the soaker seats--I wanna get in the friggin' pool.

At least now we've found the others

Being seen, and being heard - very powerful phenomenon, that feeling like an accepted member of a tribe. When those basic needs of food, clothing, shelter and being seen are taken care of, so much more energy is available to allow creative expression, however that manifests in any individual life:
mothering well, laying tile, applying paint to canvas, trouble-shooting the glitch on the computer, whatever.

And for us HSP (highly sensitive persons) intuitive introverts, actually locating this tribe to which we long to belong can be a demoralizing, life-long torture.

The tribal components that we need in place in order to feel seen aren't off-the-rack for us. The culture in which we swim doesn't support those components, so we must ferret them out for ourselves, tentatively poking our delicate noses in mousetraps and landmines all over the place.

We want to reach out and connect, and often attempt to do that with the extroverted, cast-iron nervous-systemed, non-woo-woo types who come across our paths at the various kinds of gatherings living an adult life involves us with.

Let's just say that these experiences are often less than satisfying, less than gratifying.

Less than.

So when one somehow does stumble upon a fellow tribe member, much less an entire tribe, it's basically like living out the story of The Saggy Baggy Elephant.

The relief and the rejoicing attendant with discovering other beings who "get" you without hesitation, who know exactly what it's like thriving in a culture that does not honor you, who speak your language--it's beyond description, although all of us attempt it because it's so amazing when it happens.

But in order to be seen, one has to show up. In spite of all the tripped mousetraps and exploded landmines, one must perservere to sing their song in the world. One must relay the message one was tasked with by the universe, or we all lose.

It's a Catch-22 of outrageous proportions, sort of like the Course in Miracles adage that it is a required course; only the time you take it is voluntary.

I ran across this manifesto of our tribe recently and share it here in hopes that it supplies the same relief and rejoicing for you as it did for me.

At least now we've found the others.

mending in three places

Who am I NOT to be?

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." - Marianne Williamson

This quote, the authoring of which is often
misattributed to Nelson Mandela, has been on my mind lately.

I've been thinking about it because dreams coming true
in my experience at an amazing rate during this last stretch
of sand through the hourglass requires that replacements be found.

The proverbial bucket is getting proverbially dry.

Well, that's not necessarily true. I don't NEED to replace my old
dreams with new ones.

Whatever.

And based on my beliefs about how the universe works,
any new dream that I conjure will have a pretty good
shot at attaining worldly form. So I am in hyper-awareness mode
as to just what these new dreams might be.

I want resumes on them. I want references. I want
background checks. Cuz people, I don't want just any
ol' dream on my team anymore.

Which brings me to Marianne's quote, the part about
being powerful beyond measure. That's freaking me out
a little bit right now, because my inner knowing tells
me that it's true.

And my puny-acting-on-its-own mortal persona knows it, too.
For example, at the moment I am being paid to write for a living and that
writing gets published to reach millions of people. Not exactly
in the manner in which I had envisioned, but that's not really
any of my concern.

If I objectively consider what it is about this job that jazzes me,
it's those qualities that the universe took upon itself to make manifest,
rather than the paltry wishlist I tenaciously held onto for decades, that
make it the dream job that it is.

So any dream successor candidate that floats across my
consciousness has some big jazzed-ness boots to
fill. And that deepest fear thing, I've been observing that mortal persona
part of me allowing it to cause some occasional hesitation in
recruiting the newest members of my dream team.

Analysis paralysis, delusions of grandeur,
perfectionist standards - these inner critics and censors
all have graced the judges' table for a moment or two. But
they've also politely been thanked for their services in the past and
relegated to the nosebleed seats.

There's a new sheriff in town doin' the choosin'. And
it's OK if it takes me awhile to assemble a new cast
of characters. Like so many other things in this
lifetime, it's not exactly the wait that was worth it,
it was the lessons learned along the way, that made
that thing waited for, that much sweeter when it
finally did arrive.

Changing one's mind based on new data, even in midstream, is good.
Refining, even on an hourly basis, what makes my heart sing is not fickle,
it's mandatory. Have you noticed how many options there are out there?

However, I have developed a new set of criteria that these new dreams
have to meet in order to make the cut after the interview:

1) Do you cause the curve of a smile to appear on my face
when I ponder you?
2) Do you make me giggle with glee when I picture you in My Life, The Movie?
3) Does thinking about you provide a slow, simmering accumulation
of anticipation, as opposed to an explosive sugar high?
4) How exactly will I feel awesome when you happen?

Because after all, who am I NOT to?

the benefit of certainty

Last night three gentlemen contacted me via Plenty of Fish, a free dating site, from which I have had very little communication since I posted my profile awhile ago. So last night was a little bizarre, but interesting, in its abundance.

Each situation presented me with an issue that I have dealt with in the past and could choose to do so again, but - nah. The first one lives in a cool college town an hour and a half from here, where many members of my tribe probably live and I would love living there. However, no more long distance relationships, unless the guy flies me in every weekend! I liked how he communicated - his email said - "You're so far away." That was it. I replied that yes, that sucked, that I had been in a few LDRs and they seemed to promote an unrealistic view of the person and the relationship, and he wrote back saying the same thing, and bummer. That was cool.

The second one was from someone who wrote very little about himself in his profile and wanted to talk on the phone, right away, with nothing to go on and nothing to give me an idea of whether or not I'd WANT to talk to him on the phone. He has two sons with Asperger's, which was an interesting lead-in, but the weirdness around his communication style made my decision for me.

The third seemed intelligent enough, but he also lives an hour and a half away, and with the photo he included of him carrying a protest sign in a march somewhere and from the quote he chose to put in his first email to me that included the words "protest" and "conformity", I knew that his political beliefs would not have room for my non-protest, leading-by-example kind of non-conformity.

It might look like I'm being picky from the outside, but on the inside it feels like liberation, from making excuses for people in their inappropriateness for me, and in doing the female thing of giving everyone the benefit of the doubt. It felt great to give myself the benefit of the certainty, in trusting my intuition and saving myself from unnecessary heartache.

you have a nice time

More MySpace spam:

Hello Babie
How are you doing there , I hope you are okay there. My name is Michael. i am 46 years old from Utah,Sandy city in USA , I just went through your file , I saw your profile I was acquinted by you profile , I was highly impressed and deadly gorgeous , You're so cute and Prettylady , I would like to know more about you ,As I can see that your physical appearance is so beautiful , It's make me feel that your emotional and deeply inside would be adorable , I really admire the way you look so much ..I'm here to look for the right one for me a commitment relationship on here , That's would favour and concered my discomfort from my ex-lovers that died five years ago ,I'm easy going man , Honest and trustworthy ,Loyal and obedient to my love once ,I'm caring and friendly , Open minded and tendernesss, i will really like to hear back from you soon ... I would be looking to hear from you pretty soon.You can send me an email . i am also on yahoo chat now you can talk to me,my id is mdm3196
private email address mdm31960@yahoo.com or msn
You have a nice time and bye for now.
michael

Somehow, I don't think the person who wrote that looks like this:

It's possible, but not likely.

talk to the hand, mom

Loftbed - The Musical, Part I

The great adventure has begun. It involves power tools and measuring and busting old stories out the wazoo. I am building a loft bed with the help of a friend who has the necessary skills and tools and is willing to show me the way through the wilderness. This cargo of lumber is now cut to size and patiently waiting for drilling and staining,

Power tools are a fascinating thing. They work really well when used in the proper manner and with healthy respect for safety, but somehow this saw blade just wasn't into it......

This array of clouds kept me company on the way to work this morning while gawker delay kept the pace to a minimum for the first 30 minutes. I didn't even mind....

how I raise my vibes

At last, a meme I can get behind. Five things that I do to raise my vibration, intentionally -- sponsored by OptimistLab. Here goes:

1) Music. Just the first few bars of a song can get my out of my chair and dancing, if not literally, than figuratively, or at least shimmying in my car. And not just any old music. I am a child of the late 60s, 70s and early 80s - that's when my musical tastes were caste. There is a certain combination of rhythm, bass, chord progression, and unabashed joy on the part of the performer/songwriter/lyricist that has to be met. Otherwise I can be annoyed, irritated, unsatisfied. I'd say an easy jump of seven or eight steps on the emotional scale, easy, with this one. The latest inspiration to hit my cd player is KT Tunstall.

2) Cooking. I didn't really appreciate this fine art until I was 30 years old and started experimenting with the recipes in the Sundays at  Moosewood Restaurant cookbook that was given to me as a gift. The act itself is a meditation. The gathering of ingredients a delight. Invoking flavors and aromas from previously separate and distinct forms of food pure alchemy. And when certain flavors hit my taste buds, well, there are many people on this planet on several continents who can attest to the galvanizing effect it has me. Right now there are spices commingling in my refrigerator that can cause fireworks.

3)  Humor. The kind that makes me laugh out loud in its preposterousness, in its ridiculousness, in its brashness, in its outlandishness, in its childlike celebration of the human condition. Not slapstick, and not at anyone's expense. Just a joy-induced recognition that we are in this together and oh-my-god-how-funny-was-that?! 

4) Movies. Like Dave Chapelle's Block Party. Or Diner. Or some out-of-the-way title that you would never have heard of except that you saw it in the preview posse on a rental dvd. They transport me from my mundane rut and take me places, thank goodness, that I would never ever go on my own. The standard fare from Hollywood just doesn't cut it. Don't pander to me, and don't insult my intelligence. As an audience, we are capable of so much more!

5) Abraham-Hicks cds. Every so often I listen to the older ones again, because more often than not, there is new material there that I didn't hear the last time. Waves of well being permeate through me when a concept hits home because of their words. I've experienced more peace of mind because of this material than anything else I've encountered thus far.

Now to tag other worthy bloggers of high vibes:

postcards from nowhere

why do I love my life so much

complex universe

branches

water

shoes

hello, epiphany

It's day 5 of the cleanse, and there you are. Well, one of you, I assume - I suspect there may be more of you out there, waiting for the right moment to appear - when I'm ready. You showed up in slightly less dour trappings than you might have, even a few months ago. That was interesting in and of itself. But this time, rather than under the guise of dysfunction, you were inner being coming to sit down at the kitchen table for a chat. Finally. Mugs in hand, we faced each other and sat in silence, all the communication being non-verbal, running behind the scenes in a river ambling sweetly on the back forty.

I asked you, "Why?" And you answered, "You know. You've always known. It's right there, rather than deeply hidden underneath layers of pain. You can pick it up and look at it."

So I did.  Quietly. No drama. Just reminiscences. Speculation on my part, followed by substantiation.

Oh.

That's why. Jealousy, abandonment, approval-seeking, neediness, unworthiness - just a mirage, a facade. A story.

To let go of.

more gerber goodness

 

red elephant ears

for this again

This gift  I give myself is getting easier to give.

Doesn't mean that don't I slip up and watch myself try to pretend that it might be OK to go for something that isn't good for me anyway. Now, though, that I've been practicing some, I know I'm watching, and to disappoint the watcher, the observer, well, that's just too much pain to contain anymore. The observer deserves more than that.

And it's different now. I recognize the inappropriate, the unsuitable, the incompatible, the shallow end swimmer. It's a sort of scattered, all-over-the-place feeling I pick up, since their energy isn't focused. It feels like I'm waiting at a bus stop for the connection to show up, and it doesn't. It can't, because it's the wrong street, it's the wrong route, it's the wrong bloody bus company.

It's easier to say, "No, thanks." And mean it.

What makes it even easier to spot is knowing how the exact opposite feels. When that bus arrives, actually just the approach, when you see it coming from a few blocks away, there is confirmation, there is anticipation, there is a letting go. The doors swing open, and there are so many interesting conversations to begin in any given seat. And the destination on the sign above the driver's head--that's just for looks. The possibilities unfold as far and wide as I am able to allow.

And what about that--living large, wide open, full-throttle, inhaling the texture of every day until it hurts so good you cry out in gratitude?

What about that?  

the occurence

My recollection of the first day of ninth grade is my first sense memory of The Occurrence.

I don't remember exactly if it was prompted by a previous reading of some rah-rah self-esteem article in Glamour or Seventeen magazine, the irony of which I can only roll my eyes at now, but I do recall deciding quite consciously that day, just hours before classes started, that THIS first day of school was going to be spectacular.

Cliques and teen-aged insecurities be damned, I was going to enjoy myself and have a great time.

And I did. Thirty years later I can still feel the wonder and the power of the decision I was able to make based on The Occurrence.

This phenomenon I describe as a thought that materializes from seemingly out of nowhere that brings with it a very palpable shift from the funk in which you might have found yourself, say, the night before, to a feeling in a more northwardly direction on the emotional scale the next morning.

It's almost as if one awakens in another country. I feel like I'm back on a balcony overlooking an Italian beach - the light is sharper, the air is sweeter, and the food is a hell of a lot better.

This has happened to me too many times for me to ignore or pass off as some random circumstance.

Its effect is especially striking in contrast to the aforementioned funk. The swiftness and the intensity with which it pervades and improves the overall condition my condition is in, well, quite simply knocks my socks off.

The energy it would take for me to pull something like this off by myself is staggering to contemplate, so I adorn The Occurrence with lofty uppercase letters and bold font to denote the true place of honor this phenomenon holds in my Way Cool Things the Universe Does Pantheon.

The fact that I can witness this happenstance in other people as well just adds to the deliciousness of the whole experience.

The fact that it doesn't happen to everyone, or that for some, their Occurrences are on the other end of the emotional spectrum, is just as fascinating.

So of course I wonder why.

Why do some people possess the innate ability to rescue themselves from the wreckage of modern life, time after time, prevailing against the odds by pulling this positive cherry picker out of their proverbial hat?

And why are some not able to do so?

I don't know, and after many years of pondering this question, I've concluded that pursuing this line of thinking is futile.

What I DO know is that my reserves of gratitude skyrocket during Occurrence occasions, and that there is some cause-and-effect thing going on there that makes the whole thing possible in the first place.

So what is it that allows these Occurrences in? And how do I capitalize on the emotional turbo-charger effect when they hit?

If they are as flexible and as omnipresent as I think they are, are they truly just on the other side of a thinly veiled membrane that I can't see but is there nonetheless? One that I could learn to tap into more often if I practiced enough?

I'm picturing a translucent, lightweight material like what might be used in skin grafting procedures. One that might hang like a mosquito curtain. One that I could conjure in my head to remind me that my first mortal impulse in a given situation might not be my most intelligent choice.

I feel another Resistance Toy coming on.

the chute

I started a new job today (well, three days ago now).


I started a new job that has been a long time coming, waiting patiently for me to get ready for it.


The right circumstances and events had to be orchestrated by the universe. Relationships had to be seeded and watered and nurtured over many years. Subsets of skills had to be acquired, one by one. Confidence had to be allowed and owned.


Then, and only then, the mother of all vortexes could open up to transfer a dream from my vibrational escrow account and place it on my doorstep.


How do I know these things? Because of how it felt. Effortless (mostly, when I got out of the way). Instinctual. The next logical step.


As a matter of fact, it reminds me of a time in my youth when a similar sort of situation lined up for me. You may have read about that adventure.

Remembering that period in my life gives me some excellent perspective from which to savor this latest round of delight even more.


What I didn't know back then:


1) This too shall pass. The momentary elation of landing a job, nailing interviews, knowing people are saying nice things about you - all that is great for a few minutes, then the hard work comes along fast and furious, during which you continue to build an artful life from moment to moment in addition to your identity in the job, and that is sweet;


2) Attaining a dream doesn't have to be a disorienting experience. Now that this one is out of the hopper, what other cool stuff is coming up behind it, now that there is room in the chute for more? Knowing what I know now, I have just as much enthusiasm around that element at this point as I do about what I'm learning about my new job;


3) Being true to my soul sister - that part of myself that holds the keys to everything I need to know and holds the space for me to finally pick them up and put them in the appropriate lock - is what brings the perfect fit, what makes the show go on, what this life is all about.

I let go of a relationship today.


I let go of a relationship that was right for many, many reasons, and wrong for very few.


This was a prime example of when two of the latter do not equal one of the former. It can't. It doesn't breathe that way.


While I do feel the loss and continue to process it all, these are the things that I know now:


1) Shedding fear and doubt and worry transforms your life, in ways you can't imagine, but that's the point;


2) Honesty rocks, even if only one person can muster the courage to stand in it;


3) Desires for what you want are born from what you don't want, and all the fun is in the fine-tuning.


Dreams meander, simmer, percolate, explode, shift and expire.


Say "Yes" to it all.

still small voice

It's 3:37 PM - do you know where you still small voice is?

I've been thinking a lot about mine lately - what it is, what it means, how it works, what its favorite color might be.

Over the past decade the little bugger's dimensions may have morphed at times to shrill and gargantuan, but I have to admit that it wouldn't have gotten my attention any other way.

No matter the proportions it takes on, it is mine and mine alone. No one else could tickle its fancy or could possibly identify with it.

And no one else is supposed to. That's the whole idea.

Unfortunately, many of us on the planet find ourselves born into families and raised in religious communities and immersed in cultural swimming pools that have a vested interest in drowning out that still small voice.

Of course, at some point along the way, most of theirs had been similarly smothered, so this saga takes on a chicken-or-the-egg quality. Eventually something has to just clear the barnyard.

In the meantime, those of us who manage to resurrect those voices and begin to listen to them again, I'm encouraging you to form your own dousing squads and practice those skills. You know, the ones that effectively put a damper on any detected attempts to mess with said voices, yours or anyone else's.

The trick here is to not get caught up in the very mindset out of which you've recently extracted yourself. Requiring someone else to view something the way you do, well, that's where the seeds of enmity are planted.

Give them enough time and attention and they will grow to embody the fate of the cast of Romeo and Juliet. Or the storyline of 911.

Instead, try diffusing those energy hooks early on with a psyche that's like Teflon on Velcro. Let me explain.

Recently I encountered two sources of information that might have provoked me to a certain level of indignation were I not leading intense training maneuvers with my own dousing squad.

One of these resources was a book written about several women through the ages whose place in the history books was either left out entirely or whose story may have been slightly maligned by misguided contemporaries.

I was enjoying the thinly veiled sarcasm and a more balanced account of the motives behind the various splendidly independent and adventuresome lives these ladies chose to lead, all of whom managed to find a way to listen to their still small voices in spite of required membership in clubs with extreme swimming pools to the contrary.

Until I got to the part where the author, a female, began to disparage modern females for, in her opinion, jumping into dangerous waters of another kind of wet:

"Instead of casting off the shackles of yore, we may have buckled on a second set of them; instead of flinging ourselves into endless possibility, we may have dug ourselves deeper into the cave. Those degrees and careers are time-eaters and demand ceaseless loyalty and attention...the higher we rise professionally, the deeper the shackles bite...when we manage a long weekend, we take the laptop along, and with the corner office finally in sight, who would buy a camel and vanish alone into the desert aboard it, or even lock herself in a bedroom for twenty years to write unpublished verse?"

Who indeed.

I could feel myself getting riled up with this person, with whom I had just spent 265 pages celebrating choices that had been made in spite of severe legal and societal pressures not to, and then out of nowhere launches this bombastic diatribe.

Apparently the only sanctioned place for endless possibility in her mind is in the harsh physical landscapes and exotic locales in which her heroines seemed to thrive.

So much for championing the still small voice.

The second such oracle was in a blog post referring to another blog post - you know the delicious labyrinths one can got lost in, clicking away happily in linkland. The vehemence of the original blogger's words practically took my breath away.

You can read them both here.

Underneath the bile and vitriol tip of such dismissive and disempowering words can only be an iceberg of pain constructed with layer upon layer of still small voice road kill. Somewhere along the line I'm guessing these women were not just cajoled into the numbing surf, as we all are; their heads were forcibly held under the surface.

What I know to be true is that pointing fingers and drawing attention to their presumed powers of divination will only spawn more of the same.

Pushing against pushing against only pushes against.

Enter the dousing brigade. Mustering compassion rather than reproach, I choose to focus on something else. Blessing them even though they can't hear me from my particular register on the emotional scale, I wish for them a way back to their still small voices.

There is enough endless possibility to go around.

snake oil

One person's snake oil is another person's godsend.

And vice versa.

But you've got to be clued into which is which, for you, to know the difference, for you.

Sounds simple, doesn't it? But most of us, I would contend, carry on with our lives from day to day in a not-so-blissful state of not-knowing.

I woke up to this fact recently, again, after realizing that a particular situation was, after all was said and done, not good enough for me.

Not "not good enough" as in, see that sofa over there? It needs to be champagne beige or I'm outta here. But "not good enough" as in, a little piece of "Me" dies with every moment that this person, place or thing continues to be what or who it is in all its glory. If that continues, pretty soon I won't exist.

And why, you may ask, does a little piece of you die?

Very good question. A little piece of us dies because the opposite isn't happening.

Interaction around someone or some thing isn't providing nurture, strength, encouragement, a lightness of being.

Instead we feel drained, fatigued, dragged down, lost.

Time spent where life is not breathing through you with excitement, with anticipation, with love, well, that just ain't livin'.

Our souls get sapped when there is a consistent withdrawal of energy rather than a consistent deposit of energy into what we are doing.

Over time, we get tired, figuratively and literally, because our tanks are empty, and worse than not refilling, we start eating away at ourselves on some level since we need something upon which to subsist.

There may be small subtle indications that things are amiss, but we ignore them because we want to believe otherwise.

We want to sustain an idea or goal or promise or feeling that made perfect sense to us at one time but no longer does, either consciously or unconsciously.

We cringe at the thought of changing our minds and acting on it, even though that is perfectly acceptable and people do it everyday.

But doesn't that reeks of selfishness?

Yup, sure does, and it's high time that the negative connotations to that word enjoy a cultural turnaround.

If participating in life's offerings on the basis of whether or not they please me, they make me feel good to be alive, they promote my well-being, they make it possible for me to have something to give to others, they propel my activity as a world citizen - if that's selfish, then sign me up for a lifetime membership to the club.

And please, I want as many of my fellow planet dwellers as possible on the roster too.

The more of us paying attention to how we feel and no longer willing to abide hanging out in the lower registers of the emotional scale, the better off we all are.

And the best part is, we all get to say what it is that makes us feel good, because no two people's happiness barometers are the same. No one can speak that truth for you.

No one's set of things-on-the-planet-that-get-me-jazzed can be taken away from you or manipulated or stymied, unless you allow it.

Hanging out and being happy.

To some this smacks of snake oil and hurting other people and having our brains stuck under the sand.

To me, it is a godsend.

And that is all that matters.

smarter, slower, deeper

It is mid-January as I write this – just about the time that many new year’s resolutions begin to crash and burn, I’ll wager. Personally, I don’t partake in that ritual anymore. The only memory that I can resuscitate on the matter involves me at age 9 pledging as of January 1 to no longer fight with my little brother.

Those sentiments of peace and good will probably lasted all of an hour before irritation exceeded tolerance levels.

If I’d known then what I know now, I would have sat myself down and said, “Listen. You and I both know that your brother is not going to be any less annoying in January than he is right now. He’s seven, he can’t help it. Let’s use our brains here and corral our energy around something -”

“Hey, who the heck are you?”

“I’m your Older but Wiser Self. Pleased to make your acquaintance again, I’m sure.”

“But my brother is such a dork – he’s always getting into my stuff, and he’s just stupid!”

“I know. Right now he’s not the easiest to get along with. But there will come a time when he is, trust me. Twenty years from now you will appreciate the man he has become.”

“Twenty years from now?”

“Right – hard to imagine, but it goes quickly. You still listen to music a lot?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Good. Don’t stop. It made such a difference, and I’m glad you did that.”

---

Not buying into the resolution industry's way of doing business doesn’t mean I don’t set goals for myself or ride the clean-slate vibe this time of year exudes. I just give myself more of a chance to succeed than the proverbial snowball in hell.

There is much power and much privilege involved with granting permission to myself to pursue a goal or a dream – and ultimately no one but me thwarts my progress.

Consider this: who chooses what sits on the tines of that fork as it glides through the air into my mouth? What alien entity keeps my body immobilized in front of the TV instead of engaged with my writing, bouncing on my rebounder, or listening to my Japanese language cds?

When I’m clear that there are no outside forces responsible for making or breaking my newest self-improvement endeavor, this is obnoxiously good news. On the one hand it sucks that blaming my dream’s abysmal state of affairs on anything but me has been declared officially lame.

But, on the other hand, what better weapon could I possibly have in my arsenal than control over what’s really running the show – my thoughts and beliefs?

---

When I cross the line in my head from vague want to definite desire, I know that there are three things that may keep me from attaining that desire – Resistance, The Wiley One; Overwhelm, his first cousin; and Misinformation, a.k.a. I-Know-It-All-Already.

If my desire is, say, exercising for 20 minutes everyday before work on my rebounder, I know that the perceived pay-off has got to be greater than my perception that there is no heaven like that of staying in bed as long as possible. My resistance will budge a whole lot quicker when I deal with it on those terms, and the tenacity of my new habit will last a lot longer.

Misinformation is handled when I remind myself that my body only needs moderate aerobic activity for 20 minutes three times a week to realize the benefits I’m looking for. If I somehow make it to seven days a week in my new routine, great, but I don’t need to.

Overwhelm is really good at provoking folks into throwing in the towel before things get going long enough for them to become a new habit. Rather than allow him to call the shots, I can decide to break down all the elements that would need to be a part of a successful exercise venture, and find ways for them to exist one step at a time.

I could, and did, position my rebounder in a dedicated space where it could be left in a user-ready position. The next day, I selected music that would help put me in a good mood when I hop on and keep me there for as long as I want to jump, and cued it up on my cd player.

A few days later I found clothes at a thrift store that would complete my exercise ensemble and help lift my spirits when I put them on. Then, I laid those clothes out where I could easily get to them when stumbling around in an early morning stupor.

Knowing all of those things were in place gave me the time and space to get up early a few mornings after that and easily imprint the first fledgling synapses of a new habit in my body-mind. It’s been a week, and I actually enjoy doing it.

I have no idea if I’ll still be with it come August, but I know that the difference it already makes in how I feel is the pay-off that will keep me coming back a heck of a lot more than beating myself up for not sticking with it.

If you’re suffering from the self-inflected pain of once again not following through on a new year’s resolution, try giving yourself permission to regroup and strategize again, anticipating what havoc those ROM (Resistance, Overwhelm and Misinformation) rascals can wreak in your best laid plans, and lay them smarter, slower, and deeper this time around.

Heck, tomorrow’s a new year in my book.

safe harbor

Some days just suck.


Some days it appears that there are no options.


Some days the pain is so thick that you aren't able to see anything else.


Some days you think you're losing your mind.



Some days it feels like you're driving along and all of a sudden there it is, another cloudburst, that sudden torrential rain that hits every once in awhile.


And no matter how high you set your wipers, they can't keep up with the pace of the onslaught to your windshield.


It just keeps coming, you're blinded, you panic, and you wonder how long this torture will last.


Usually it shows up near a bump in the road of a relationship. Or there's always the detour sign of a health issue - that's a good one, isn't it?


Or the street that's closed for construction and the businesses on that street fail, costing you a job.


Stuff happens, you react like you always have and, you notice, you FEEL that way, too.

Until one day the downpour arrives yet again, and while you are casting about for something, anything, to make this pain go away, you discover from the corner of your eye that the source of the downpour isn't a terrestrial one - it's actually coming from the inside.


You pull over, depleted and not really able to comprehend.


The storm has an internal source? Is this a factory installation, or an after-market deal?


So. It would appear that your frantic efforts up to this point to dispel the tempest with mechanics and sheer will have obviously been futile.


Stunned by what you witnessed, your focus momentarily distracted, the storm in all its wiley timing begins to lift, and you pull slowly back onto the highway.


This magical squall will appear again, and again, and again, until such time as you are adequately distracted and fascinated by the possible source of this neighborly tidal wave.


Then things really get interesting.


Then, the travel metaphor shifts to a lakeside scene, where you are now manning your own rowboat. Naturally, a storm comes up and, of course, catches you out in mid-paddle.


Looking back over your shoulder, the dock, where you've always climbed aboard your vessel, beckons with familiarity and seemingly safe harbor.


The opposite shoreline looms ahead, shrouded in cloud and mist. It would only make sense for it to really be there, wouldn't it?

You pull on the oars in spite of the fear, in spite of every cell in your being screaming for you to go back, go back!


You paddle far enough into the grey for the sun to start breaking through. There is, in fact, a sandy beach, right over yonder, holding the space for your successful landfall.


The waters are calm here on this side of the storm. Placid. Serene, even. Of course, who's to say what new variety of wiley critter lies in wait for you once you start exploring this new neck of the woods.


Oh, what the hell - you've survived an indoor sprinkler system, what could be so bad?

red light, green light

These days I am quite taken with the marvel of stoplights.

At one regulated intersection recently where I complied with a red light's dictum, I observed there was not just one but two sets of traffic signals swinging from the cables above my head.

This is not the first time I've noticed this phenomenon, but it got me wondering how that whole replacement thing works. A few unfruitful Google searches later, I remain unenlightened.

Usually the new set just shows up one day - rarely have I ever witnessed the actual installation of the lights - dangling perpendicular to the ground near the old set until whoever gives the go-ahead to swap them out.

Why is the whole job not done in one fell swoop? Is there a waiting period til the new set gets acclimated to its surroundings, maybe avoiding a slight case of acrophobia? 

If I decide to pursue this mystery with local transportation authorities, I'll keep you informed of any resolution. In the meantime, there's an analogy inherent in that doubling, in terms of how change is incorporated into our lives, that I think is worth a gander.

The phrase, "Fake it til you make it," comes to mind as I see these look-alikes hovering side by side, the as-yet-to-be-engaged version acting as a sort of place holder for what's to come.

Those of us who proclaim verbal, written or thought-form intentions for a changed behavior or attitude might want to borrow this image as a totem for our self-improvement endeavors.

Picture that desired new aspect of ourselves standing quietly but resolutely by while we perform our due diligence to let go of the old one.

There might be a whole lotta stoppin' and startin' goin' on during this transitional time. If you're at all like me, the choppiness of a real game of Red Light, Green Light would aptly describe how the momentum can feel.

And, if you're like me, there might also be a certain amount of impatience with the discernible progress being made, impatience here being the front-line representative for Team Resistance.

Eventually though, days or weeks or months or years from now, we become aware that there indeed has been a shift in how we think and feel, a changing of the guard so subtle but so pervasive that our feelings are unmistakably hanging out in new territory.

Something that used to tie us up in knots of overwhelm as hefty as traffic light cable, now might provoke only mere annoyance the bulk of a common rubber band.

So the next time you find yourself stopped underneath a traffic signal, take a minute to observe whether the old guard is being put on notice with the presence of the new.

If you've got access to a rubber band to send flying, so much the better.

reconnection

"If I have painted it well, you will sense that the ocean is a magical place for me. One that without effort or energy creates calm and an over-riding experience of loving-kindness. The problem is I don’t live by the ocean. I live about twenty-five minutes up the Kennebec River in Bath, Maine. It is beautiful here; there is tidal water out the back door and it is not the same. Sometimes I am in Chicago, Newark or New York, long distances from my instant tranquility machine. In those moments, I have learned that I must be able to recreate the ingredients of this experience by the ocean in order to be as focused and useful as possible in the world."

---

This is a snippet from Bill Cummings in his monthly newsletter.

While I'm looking out the window just now from my cubicle at my day job, I yearn for the magic of the ocean, or the mountains right about now, too. But a jaunt to that kind of transformational setting just ain't gonna happen today, or anytime soon.

So how do I recreate that inspired feeling without hopping on a plane? I look for interactions with people who are likely to "play" with me, either in person or via email.

I pull out any inspirational tapes or cds that I haven't listened to for awhile. Whatever metaphysical concept I've been internalizing lately will hit me as new material, even though I might have listened to it 35 times when I first got it.

At lunch, I go for a walk in a park about a mile from where I work - I can almost not hear the traffic. Or I utilize the uninhabited floor of our office building and do laps there when it's not conducive to go outside.

I keep trying things until I get that reconnection that I need. It's essential and it's not hard to do, once I establish a sure-fire list of pick-me-ups that I keep for such occasions.

Hanging a Gone Fishin' sign on the back of my chair helps too, even if I'm sitting in it.

philosophy

Today I will forget
that I am a precious child.
Today I will disregard my birthright
to happiness and prosperity.
Today I will struggle against my being
exactly
where I am supposed to be,
doing exactly what I am supposed to do.

Today,
the people and situations
placed lovingly in my path
as opportunities for joy,
I will fail to see them as such.
Today I will believe in the illusions
of lack and scarcity.
Today I will doubt possibility.
Today I will resist reaching out for
healing.
Today I will compromise my integrity.
Today I will defy fulfilling my purpose here.
Today I will react from effect
instead of create from cause.
Today I will dignify nonsense.
Today I will live down
to the standards of the world.

Tomorrow
I will give it another try.

~Debra Schanilec

permission granted

OK, I lied.

A few blog posts back, I proclaimed that I was taking a kinder, gentler approach to developing my latest stretch of spirituality real estate. Rather than launch an all-out assault, I would go for subtlety, hanging out with the Observer while abundance consciousness permeates the interior, taking its own good time.

Ha.

Two days later, I had bumped into several books and a 40-day prosperity program to jump into. Trouble is, participating in the latter requires getting up early, and the story I tell myself is that I just don't do that very well.

So I decided to do what makes the most sense to me when approaching uncharted bodies of knowledge or boxes of accumulated wisdom.

I sail the waters, unwrap the packages, take what works for me and leave the rest.
Which in this case means extract the juice, and leave the dead husk of wrapper behind.

The inspiration and effort that went into writing those books and choreographing those programs before they found their way to me will come alive again when I pull the ideas through my juicer, and add the twists that will make them my own.

The phrase "permission granted" popped into my head during this flurry of activity in my brain, and while I was certainly doing that for myself in this situation, it didn't seem to go far enough to describe what was really happening.

It felt like the hatch on another layer of existential mechanization had flipped open, and I was climbing out into new surroundings like an 18th century citizen transported to the present, wide-eyed, jaw-dropping.

Only the stint of time travel I was riding involved primal hunting grounds. For permission to be granted, I reasoned, there was another more basic tenet involved: indigenous release.

"Indigenous" meaning native, natural, original inhabitant, birthright by existence. By virtue of the fact that I was born on this planet, there are certain inalienable claims for me to make on my own behalf whose sole purpose is to help me continuously answer the question: Do you believe you have the right to have what you want?

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness, concerning all acts of initiative and creation." Sir Edmund Hillary. As long as I can't answer immediately with a resonating "Yes", then my answer remains a "No".

All the social gender conditioning to defer gratification to others, all the self-inflicted reinforcement of generalized unworthiness, all the cultural taboos about money acquired by osmosis -- all of that needs to be unclaimed, left on layaway for dust to gather, in order for the indigenous release to take.

Do you believe you have the right to have what you want?

What's your answer?

the way we know ourselves

“It’s impossible to be bitter and happy; bitterness is about taking a perverse delight in stroking our wounds, becoming so wrapped up in them that they become the way we know ourselves.”

-M.J. Ryan, The Happiness Makeover: How to Teach Yourself to Be Happy and Enjoy Every Day

---

“The way we know ourselves.” That phrase jumped out at me from the page while I was reading this book. How is it that I know myself? What habits of thought have I spun in my brain so often that that’s “just how I am”?

Do I want to know myself on those terms? If I could choose, would I keep them or trade them in?

During the time of my divorce and for several years afterward, there were reflexes so ingrained in my thinking on the subject of my ex that it was nearly impossible for me to respond to interactions with him in any other way than – well, let’s just say not very constructively.

There was a point at which it became obvious to me that the energy and time I was spending reacting was not only wasted – this emotional roller coaster ride amounted to large negative balances in my ledger of life. I just didn’t want to feel this way anymore.

With the help of a supportive coach, I was slowly able to train myself to step back from the oh-so-inviting thought-ruts in my brain and choose differently, one neuro pathway and one interaction at a time.

Periodically I wish I could pin down where that line is that I crossed in my head and dissect how I got there. All the books I’ve read and the tapes I’ve listened to and the thinking I’ve done over a lifetime prior to that moment contribute to the breadcrumb trail, to be sure.

The cumulative effect of those encounters with other’s motivating words is worth every individual deposit, no matter how many it seems to take to get from point A to point B.

I continue to practice this most challenging mindset. It requires diligence on my part, because those old ruts run deep. And choosing to be happy rather than to be right is not exactly what we see modeled in our culture and in our daily lives.

It’s so much easier to be right – or is it? That time and energy I referred to – it’s gone, forever. That person we are trying to change – well, I know you’ve noticed, but I will make it plain - it isn’t working.

That resentment that pervades your thinking, the only person it really punishes is you – and those innocent bystanders unfortunate enough to get in your way.

So if there were one endeavor I would recommend you NOT pursue with tenacity, it would be holding on to those old reactions to old dynamics.

Your bitterness may one day lose its luster, and you may consider applying that newly-available energy to feeling better - the way you WANT to know yourself.

one thing

Last week a friend of mine sent me a link to a website called 43 Things.

Go ahead - explore, and I'll be here when you get back :~)

---

So you've seen the list, the contributions that people from around the country and the world have made to the list, the responses, the categories of topics, and maybe you've gotten some great ideas for things you want to add to YOUR list of things to do before you die.

Well, hang on a second.

Before you create your new account to construct your own list on the website, before you pull out your journal, your Daytimer, before you email yourself to start compiling those dreams - stop.

Yes, it's true that there are life-changing, magical qualities associated with getting your dreams out of your head and onto a hard, possibly shiny surface of some kind. They have a much greater chance of actually happening that way.

And yes, brainstorming with others is a great technique to snap out of the day-to-day sleep state and allow yourself the necessity of dreaming big. I certainly endorse both of those methods for getting from Point A - cerebral dreams, to Point B - goals coming true in your own life.

I had a rather unexpected reaction to this number thing, though. Rather than be amused or enthused by it, my initial thought was, "No, I don't need to make a list of 43 things I want to do. I only need one thing."

One, I tell you. One thing is what my heart wants to open up to at this moment in time, and one thing is what my energy level says we are capable of handling right now, and one thing is what my enthusiasm meter will register.

Monitoring my environment for any and all sources of energy-sucking and heart-distorting is what this list of 43 things provoked in me.

I'm sure the creators of this site have very good intentions, and if this piece of social software achieves those intentions, then so be it. I however am opting out of accumulating to a predetermined number, and instead, standing firmly behind feeling.

Feeling?

Until rather recently, I understood intellectually that my body was a conductor of emotion and that there are certain sensations associated with certain feelings whooshing through the highways and byways of my inter cellular propulsion. However actually being able to physically discern and identify those sensory pairs as they are happening is a mere blip, a nanosecond on my evolutionary radar screen.

Having grown up female in this culture complete with emotion repression systems, at various points in my life I couldn't tell you what I was feeling if my life depended on it - very often metaphorically and literally it did, depend on it. So now, for whatever reason, after many years of self-imposed self-help boot camp, this feeling thing is starting to kick in. And the delight factor in this phenomenon almost, but not quite, parallels that of my email addiction.

My delight in recognizing joy - heart-splitting, consciousness-raising joy - in my existence, and what sorts of things and people make joy happen, well - that's the sort of list I'm interested in now. Sure, a trip to Europe might make me feel good for awhile, but is the trip to Europe really the thing that would trigger joy in me? Not so sure about that one. Not anymore.

I know because I've been there, I've lived there, I've gone back to visit, and the qualities about the trip to Europe that trigger the joy are in me, not the Tuscan sun-drenched walls or the plate of saltimbocca alla Romana - though they certainly don't detract from the experience :~).

When I live in such a way so that the noise of my everyday doesn't drown out the voice of the joy, then I can heed its call and live it at the same breath-taking level, as if that Tuscan sun were glowing across my living room floor right this minute.

More importantly, the ideas that come to me about what produces joy are likely not going to come from "out there," although that is certainly a starting point. The culture that implicitly instructed my feelings to disappear, not such a good source for what might resonate with me.

At least for now, the concept of living by a list of anyone else's making - 43 things, 100 books, 50 all-time greatest movies - is subjective at best, limiting and exclusionary at worst. I'm too busy mining the molecular clues of my life with my body and enjoying the emotional harvest to be distracted by offerings that really don't have anything to do with me.

Life indeed is too short not to propagate my preferences and allow my light to shine because of it - helping others find their way in the quagmire of sensory/consumer/activity overload.

If making that list of 43 things seems like the thing your joy source is telling you to do, by all means, do it. This heart-knowledge that I'm gaining on is hardly about supposing to know what anybody else's path is lined with. But I do know this - you have a path, it is uniquely yours, it wants you to rediscover it, stay on it, and thrive from it.

I can feel it.

big guns

The Big Guns

Ever get a kick in the behind in the form of a physical ailment that lets you know in no uncertain terms that the jig is up?


Well, my body relayed that message to me recently, and consequently I am forced to listen.

Well, that's not true. I could continue along my merry clueless way and make things worse. But I'm not going to do that.


I am hereby taking responsibility for what I know to be true.


I've entertained thoughts of gifting myself with turning in early in the evenings in order to regift myself with exercising and meditation in the mornings before dashing off to my day job.

For months now my body clock has been awakening me early enough to accomplish those things, but being less than enthusiastic about getting out of a perfectly good, warm bed, I've stalled those plans equally as long.


Now this physical issue rears its pretty head and says, "Listen. We've given you chance after chance to pursue this lifestyle change with merely subtle encouragement. Now we pull out the big guns. Gonna take the hint?"

OK, OK. I'm listening.

And I have to say I am more than a little intrigued as to what exactly is going to show up when I do get into the groove of that exercise and meditation over time.


If the universe went to such lengths to arrange it, there must be something fabulous on its way.

Hopefully just like in the movie Schultze Gets the Blues.


This is the blurb on the dvd case that convinced me to take it home with me from the library:

"A smash hit in Germany and winner of numerous film festival awards around the globe, Schultze Gets the Blues is a funny, touching peek into the world of a recently retired miner who, like his father before him, entertains polka audiences with his accordion."

When he discovers the fiery energy of Zydeco music on the radio, the rigid monotony of his daily routine takes a spicy turn. Schultze learns to play his accordion with a new snap and style. His new-found fascination ultimately leads him on a life-changing, liberating journey to the Louisiana delta."


Rigid monotony is an understatement. The director of this film captures our tendency toward the mundane and rut-lined, and exaggerates them to such a degree that it's absolutely hilarious. 
Once you recover from the shrewd poke in the ribs.


This gentle, sweet man's entire life opens up for him one night with the flick of a radio dial, and he is forever changed.

Well, that and the fact that he meets Frau Lorant, the feisty red-haired woman who inhabits the same old folks' home as his mother.


She has the best line in the movie: "You must go to the casino with me. Strengthen your nerves. Once you've really blown some cash, you'll see things in a different light."

Whatever form Frau Lorant and Zydeco take in your life, I wish for you the adventure of meeting up with them in no uncertain terms, and embracing wherever they may take you.


Before the universe pulls out the big guns.

Banana Peels and Other Cosmic Jokes

Banana Peels and Other Cosmic Jokes

A blond was walking down the street, when up ahead she spotted a banana peel right in her path. Rolling her eyes skyward, and then, with a resigned shrug of her shoulders, she said, "Here we go again."

I'm not a fan of dumb-blond jokes, or any fill-in-the-blank-with-whatever-demographic jokes. They make me cringe, and depending on who is telling them, that person makes me cringe, unless I know they roast their own demographics in the same manner.


In this case however, I was instantly taken with the whole image, replacing the joke's scapegoat with "poor misinformed human".


I identified with those of us on the planet who perceive our daily existence just as preordained and unavoidable as being compelled to make a beeline for that banana peel.


Emotional reactions to the present continue to be triggered by some unresolved drama from the past for which we keep renewing our subscriptions, voluntarily pulling out our checkbooks during a seemingly on-going membership drive.


I have to include myself in that august group. There are feelings that well up in me on occasion that are not pleasant and are not welcome and are anchored in my adult awareness only because of some unmet need in childhood playing itself out over and over again, for years.

However, for whatever reason, the intent I carry around with me is to wrestle those feelings to the ground and extinguish them, and this intent is so strong that I am able to persevere, despite great odds not in my favor.


It's just so much more convenient and easier in this culture to drown the pain, and the power to heal it, in all sorts of delectable but equally heart-numbing addictions.


It's so much easier to ignore the observer persona in my personality toolbox, to disregard the awareness map we could be charting together of the triggering going on.


It's so much easier to close down the whole emotional factory altogether, and withdraw from the notion of relationship with other people, for good.


It's so much easier to get caught up in the blame game and not take responsibility for my feelings.

Except, it isn't.


It seems that way at the time, but none of those strategies is easier, at least for me, and I have tried all of them.


In fact, they have all proved over decades' worth of experimentation to be more difficult to stomach, to endure, to abide, than to finally submit to my intent.


Not everyone is built that way, but I think that the sheer numbers that find and support the work of Abraham-Hicks, Byron Katie, the material explored in the film What the Bleep Do We Know and in The Secret - the examples are endless, really - this attests to the fact that there ARE enough of us out there who ARE built that way.


The tribe grows, and we extend and tighten the fabric of connection among humanity as each new member surfaces.


Which makes it possible for me to conceive of the day when this poor deluded human joke actually gets told, related in tones of bemused compassion for the stuck beings we individually and collectively were, for however long.


Care to join me in dunking those bananas in chocolate, while properly disposing of the peels?