With Each Decision, You Change Your Life
I feel like there is another person living inside my head. Tonight, I find myself thinking about starting a business in my home town, a city that is 2000 miles away, and working with my sister on it. I suppose I have always wanted to have a shop along the main street of the town, a small place with bay windows and a set back door, old tile floors and unique basement spaces below. Some have apartments above them, and that is another old desire, to live in an apartment above the shops.
But what is really going on here. Why am I suddenly daydreaming about returning to my family home after almost 10 years away. Is this something I really want to do, or am I just scrambling to make sense of my life in this brave new world we all find ourselves in. I do miss being around family. I miss shopping with my mom. I miss the family dinners and birthday parties. I miss listening to my dad talk about the people he has put in their place at work or the barber shop or wherever.
But do I really want to return home?
I love Phoenix, I love the weather and the desert. I do miss land that is cozy, land that lets you walk barefoot on it and lay on it, even if you do need a blanket. I miss trees with leaves and streams and the smell of the pine forest. I don't miss snow, cold weather or driving in bad weather. I don't miss gray cloudy skies nearly every day of the year.
I think this crisis is really about having a sense of home, or not having it as the case may be. My life has become quite lonely here, and not just because I work from home (as my mother thinks). I work better in quiet and silence, and this is good. But I miss friends and good times. I heard people laughing in a store tonight and I was shocked and pleased to hear them. It made me realize that I don't laugh out loud much any more. My life is entirely too solitary. But I don't just want anyone around. I want people I can talk to. I miss having friends. I miss the people who used to hang out around my life. Where have they all gone? Most have moved away, geographically, and a few have moved away emotionally. That seems like a normal cycle of events. It seems like a long time since there were new people, however. Why am I not picking up new ones? Am I being too picky, too cold, too aloof? Or is it more simple than that? Are there all sorts of people in the wings who are just waiting for me to discover them standing there?
If Abraham is right, then all I need to do is focus a bit on this new desire instead of the feeling of being alone, and my circumstances will shift to bring what I want to me. I know he doesn't recommend starting out manifesting the thing you want the most, but I'm doing to do this.
I want to live in a place where I have a sense of home and hearth, where I'm surrounded by things of beauty.
I want to share my life with people who laugh and think and enjoy the adventure of their own lives.
I want to share my home with people who are my friends, and to share my heart with a few chosen people who are true life friends.
About my life:
I want a quiet, simple life.
I want to wake up in the morning and spend my time working on things that are meaningful to me.
I want the flexibility to shift gears and take advantage of my most productive times.
I want to pour my thoughts into my writing.
I want work that allows me to use my compulsions productively and for my own benefit.
I want a life that is contact with the outdoors, that involves being outdoors for long stretches of time.
I want a happy life where I am productive and focused and always exploring new things.
One of the keys I've discovered lately is that there is no mystery to resolve about who I am or my past. My past, especially my patterns, are just habits that I can change when I decide to. There is no bill to pay... I can drop them whenever I want. The real battlefield is in the small minutes, around minor issues, and not about the big things. It's about the quality of life I bring to waiting in line, or paying my bills, or allowing someone to pull out in front of me. It's these moments, and the momentum I build from my reactions to them, that change the big things in my life.
Do I want to open a store? I suppose that I always have wanted that. It would be a great life to get to shop for work, collecting things, making things, to sell. Maybe I can find a way to make that happen, maybe it will be in Fairborn, too. Who knows? I will enjoy thinking about this until I decide what I want.
Wednesday, October 17, 2001
Friday, October 12, 2001
Deciding In The Moment
The hunger I feel for my journal is a conditioned response. What I actually feel is a high level of discomfort, emotional and sometimes physical discomfort, a feeling of treading water in the middle of a large, dark body of water at night with no shore in sight. There is no sense of risk, just frustration that I am not where I want to be. A sense of self-indulgence accompanies this, and it is only when I decide to think about something more positive that the truth of my surrounding start to become evident. Before me, I see no shore, but simply turning around shows me that I'm almost at the shore now, just facing the wrong direction. Suddenly, the sky above fills with stars, and with them, hope returns to my field of vision. From there, it is only a few more small decisions before I find myself on dry ground.
What I have learned over the years is that the act of writing helps me think, and that by choosing a few thoughts outside of the quagmire of self-indulgence has dramatic effects on how I see the world and how I feel about my life. I've learned to interpret those moments of darkness with a need to write in my journal. Inherent in that desire is the true desire, to live a rich and full life, seeing the goodness of what is around me. That is a choice. My eyes move around my life and land on the good and the not so good. My mind, also, can point out the duality of the reality around me. The trick, I've found, is to choose to focus on the good. I don't pretend that the other things are not there, I just simply decide that I want to spend the time of my life learning more about the good, exploring new things I want, and believing the best about everyone around me. Not that it comes naturally, or that I can make one decision and stay in that place.
I used to think that self discipline was that quality that allows me to make major impromvements in my life, to define and implement huge projects that would forever change my life. Things like going to college, or establishing a new healthy lifestyle, or making a commitment to a project or relationship that would let me ride through the tough times without wavering. Perhaps that is part of self discipline. What I believe today is that self discpline operates in a much smaller realm than that. It's the choice I make when I realize that I'm back out treading water. It's the small in-the-moment decisions where I say "even though I feel justified in where I am, I'm committed to spending my life towards my goals" and moving myself back to the space that is consistent with who I want to be.
Thursday, October 11, 2001
Misty clouds hang low
Wind rustles through heavy leaves
Heart unfettered, free
Where do I start?
My heart is hungry for my journal again, after a time away, and I'm wanting to feel the satisfaction that comes from really working through issues. I want more depth in my daily life. The more time and energy I spend on my spiritual life, the more I feel a deep desire to spend. I feel as though I'm being summonded, invited to peek down a dark alley way, enticed to walk through the shadow lands, to reach a place that is on the other side.
Twice today I've had the same image. It's a long narrow passageway, a tunnel cut through a wall at about eye level. At first, it appears to be into the black, into the nothingness, the darkness. But in truth, the tunnel leads to freedom, to the sunshine and to a place where my heart's desires are fulfilled. It seems crazy to pursue that path, from all signs, there is nothing but darkness. But the signs are misleading... because what lies beyond is greater than I dare let myself dream can be true. And the truth of it, the sureness of it, is not in question once I reach that other side.
My emotions are racing as I write, as my mind sifts through all of the surface level thoughts, the first steps in many directions, that I've attempted to make over many weeks. I set a goal two months ago, and today, I realize that not only have I made no progress, I've digressed. I have further to go than I did then. Why would this happen? Why would my feet and mind lead me in the opposite direction? Can my habits and routines be so strong that the extra energy I have provided only pushed me further along my current route instead of reversing my direction? I'm near the edge of tears, and then I catch myself, and turn it around. But I'm sad. I've been afraid to admit how sad I am before now. I'm disappointed that my life isn't easier, that my achievements haven't been greater, and that I've lied so completely to myself about basic issues.
But in the midst of this, I remember my dream, the last one before I woke up, the one that was interrupted by the alarm, and that let me return to it several times between the snooze settings. I felt so blown away by the realization of the dream. The details of it are not so important. I was a teenager again, perhaps 14, and reliving my life. I knew it was me, and I knew I was doing it again, a second time. I made a decision that was totally different this time, and I caught myself, saying... "she can't do that, because when she is 16 she has to..." and in that instant, wedged between that word and the one about to come, I got it. The themes of this second life would be similar, the strengths would be the same, the desires would be, at their core, similar, but the whole range of options remain open to me at every second. I could chose something totally different, take my life in a different direction, and the overall harmony of this soul's existence would remain, with each life adding to the harmonies, add complexity to the melody which is shared by so many, just one phrase of the Song of Life. My phrase. My Halleluahs added to the chorus. I am free in each moment to chose a new life.
I want to believe that. I feel myself standing on the edge of that belief, wanting to relax the muscles of my body, wanting to collapse into the immenseness of that delicious state. But holding myself back, afraid of being disappointed, afraid that my ideas are not quite on target and that a sudden burst of joy can only double back into the great pain of disappointment. I remember one moment in my life where I really felt that everything was possible, that my life was blessed, and that I was following my heart. It only lasted a few moments, and was shattered by crashing into the opinion of someone else that I was making a huge mistake. For that first time in my life, I felt free! Free to choose! Things did not progress as I would have liked, that is true, but I would not change one moment of that experience for anything.
There is a gray sadness around my heart, I feel it now. I want so much to feel dancing there instead. I want to relax the part of me that is white knuckled to present moment reality, and whisper to my own heart... you are free! It seems like there is so much work ahead of me, to really manifest the freedom in my life. I remember the horrible years of debt during my twenties, and that moment when I realized that I would actually be out of debt after many years, in just 5 months. It had snuck up on me, the years of patient waiting, of living way below my means so I could fulfill the committments I had made so foolishly. The punishment I thought I deserved. And the freedom of that release! The surprise of it made it even sweeter. And yet, looking back, I realize that I could have set myself free at the beginning. and spent those years nurturing, no basking, in the joy of that release, knowing that it was coming.
Oh to reach that place now.
I allow all of the goodness of the universe to knock softly on my door, and to begin to seep under it while I'm looking out the peep hole in caution... to wet my feet with its warm soothing and then sweep me away as it becomes a tide that I willingly surrender to. I know that in my heart, I am that joyful creature, that mermaid, who lives naturally within that swell of warmth and sustenence and beauty. Oh, beauty. Oh, heart that knows the voice of its own home. I open the fingers of my hands, and unlock the grip of my mind, and say that I am willing to know you at my door.
Thank you.
Wind rustles through heavy leaves
Heart unfettered, free
Where do I start?
My heart is hungry for my journal again, after a time away, and I'm wanting to feel the satisfaction that comes from really working through issues. I want more depth in my daily life. The more time and energy I spend on my spiritual life, the more I feel a deep desire to spend. I feel as though I'm being summonded, invited to peek down a dark alley way, enticed to walk through the shadow lands, to reach a place that is on the other side.
Twice today I've had the same image. It's a long narrow passageway, a tunnel cut through a wall at about eye level. At first, it appears to be into the black, into the nothingness, the darkness. But in truth, the tunnel leads to freedom, to the sunshine and to a place where my heart's desires are fulfilled. It seems crazy to pursue that path, from all signs, there is nothing but darkness. But the signs are misleading... because what lies beyond is greater than I dare let myself dream can be true. And the truth of it, the sureness of it, is not in question once I reach that other side.
My emotions are racing as I write, as my mind sifts through all of the surface level thoughts, the first steps in many directions, that I've attempted to make over many weeks. I set a goal two months ago, and today, I realize that not only have I made no progress, I've digressed. I have further to go than I did then. Why would this happen? Why would my feet and mind lead me in the opposite direction? Can my habits and routines be so strong that the extra energy I have provided only pushed me further along my current route instead of reversing my direction? I'm near the edge of tears, and then I catch myself, and turn it around. But I'm sad. I've been afraid to admit how sad I am before now. I'm disappointed that my life isn't easier, that my achievements haven't been greater, and that I've lied so completely to myself about basic issues.
But in the midst of this, I remember my dream, the last one before I woke up, the one that was interrupted by the alarm, and that let me return to it several times between the snooze settings. I felt so blown away by the realization of the dream. The details of it are not so important. I was a teenager again, perhaps 14, and reliving my life. I knew it was me, and I knew I was doing it again, a second time. I made a decision that was totally different this time, and I caught myself, saying... "she can't do that, because when she is 16 she has to..." and in that instant, wedged between that word and the one about to come, I got it. The themes of this second life would be similar, the strengths would be the same, the desires would be, at their core, similar, but the whole range of options remain open to me at every second. I could chose something totally different, take my life in a different direction, and the overall harmony of this soul's existence would remain, with each life adding to the harmonies, add complexity to the melody which is shared by so many, just one phrase of the Song of Life. My phrase. My Halleluahs added to the chorus. I am free in each moment to chose a new life.
I want to believe that. I feel myself standing on the edge of that belief, wanting to relax the muscles of my body, wanting to collapse into the immenseness of that delicious state. But holding myself back, afraid of being disappointed, afraid that my ideas are not quite on target and that a sudden burst of joy can only double back into the great pain of disappointment. I remember one moment in my life where I really felt that everything was possible, that my life was blessed, and that I was following my heart. It only lasted a few moments, and was shattered by crashing into the opinion of someone else that I was making a huge mistake. For that first time in my life, I felt free! Free to choose! Things did not progress as I would have liked, that is true, but I would not change one moment of that experience for anything.
There is a gray sadness around my heart, I feel it now. I want so much to feel dancing there instead. I want to relax the part of me that is white knuckled to present moment reality, and whisper to my own heart... you are free! It seems like there is so much work ahead of me, to really manifest the freedom in my life. I remember the horrible years of debt during my twenties, and that moment when I realized that I would actually be out of debt after many years, in just 5 months. It had snuck up on me, the years of patient waiting, of living way below my means so I could fulfill the committments I had made so foolishly. The punishment I thought I deserved. And the freedom of that release! The surprise of it made it even sweeter. And yet, looking back, I realize that I could have set myself free at the beginning. and spent those years nurturing, no basking, in the joy of that release, knowing that it was coming.
Oh to reach that place now.
I allow all of the goodness of the universe to knock softly on my door, and to begin to seep under it while I'm looking out the peep hole in caution... to wet my feet with its warm soothing and then sweep me away as it becomes a tide that I willingly surrender to. I know that in my heart, I am that joyful creature, that mermaid, who lives naturally within that swell of warmth and sustenence and beauty. Oh, beauty. Oh, heart that knows the voice of its own home. I open the fingers of my hands, and unlock the grip of my mind, and say that I am willing to know you at my door.
Thank you.
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