What a difference a day makes.
Since I last posted, so much has changed. I'm so grateful that I've learned how to embrace my negative feelings, be grateful for them, and focus on the fresh, new desires they birth inside me. In writing that post, I shifted my energy from treading water in my pain to facing the future with gratitude. Within hours, things started changing. My vulnerabilities were addressed by people who initiated the conversations. I don't feel any need to dwell on the mechanics or details of this, only to report that this is what happened.
Today, I find myself even further along that road. I actually feel excitement and enthusiasm for the potential of the future. I'm eager to have fresh work, new experiences, and try out even more new behaviors.
Oh, one last thought about the feeling I could trace back to high school. I think that I had figured out back then how to gauge my energy from the feedback and how to figure out new behaviors to try. It wasn't clean and pure, I still blamed myself for the feedback because I didn't have my power clear in my own heart. But I had already figured out the basic mechanics of transformation. I just wasn't giving myself credit for the great places I was reaching and didn't realize the importance of what I was doing.
I was doing pretty well back then. I can see that today.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Vulnerable and Willing
Here I am, hot tears again, and feeling the need to let it out through my words.
I don't know if my feelings are right, but I'm feeling not liked by a group of people I've embraced. It might be right. I am no stranger to people not taking to me. I'm trying to stay calm and figure out what is really happening here.
First, I'm feeling a bit vulnerable lately. I've been acting out a lot of new behaviors and having great results. But even so, the result is that I'm feeling a bit out on a limb with all of the newness. And there is my revelation yesterday, and I'm not going to recover that ground now.
Second, these people are all busy with their own lives. The small actions/inactions that I'm taking as slights are small things, and from people who are busy. Their actions are much more about them than about me. I know that in my head, of course.
Third, I haven't really learned how to be warm and cozy with people, so some of what is going on could really be feedback to me about how I'm coming off. I'm intense and impulsive, not the best combination, I know. I have been guilty of trying too hard in the past. Maybe I am just hearing that message again, and need to make some smallish adjustments.
But the largest thing in all of this is that I just want to be loved and appreciated. I really don't care who loves me or appreciates me. I mean that in the right way. I don't have any hoped pinned on any one of these people. I don't care if any one of them likes me or doesn't like me. I just want to find the ones who do like me. And this ties back beautifully to the first point... my vulnerability.
My gawd, this feels like high school where I was always trying to figure out how to be less intense and be just enough to pull in people. Some things never seem to change in my life. I wonder about that. I wonder if that is because I realized early who I am, or if this is an entire pattern of behavior that should just be released.
OK, here's what I'm going to do.
First, I'm going to just feel all of this emotion running through me. Of course I'm feeling vulnerable. Of course I want to be loved and appreciated. Nothing wrong with feeling all of this.
Second, I'm not feeling people warm up to me, so I'm going to take this as feedback. I have no way right now to know on a case by case basis if this is because it's a wrong match for me, or if I'm just too intense. Either way, the feedback seems to be that my energy in these directions is misplaced for right now. I need to be quiet and watch what happens. I may get a chance to ask some of them directly, but I'm not counting on that. I will be direct if I get the opportunity.
Third, the real heart of this issue is inside of me. I know that as long as I am feeling unloved and unappreciated, that is the kind of energy that is going to come right back to me. I need some time and space to process this by myself. More than anything else right now, I want to learn how to balance my energy in a stronger way. I want to learn how to feel the love and appreciation of the universe for me, and my own love and appreciation for myself. This is the antidote to what I'm feeling.
Oh Great Spirit, I see the road opening up before me, and I willingly commit to walking this road. I take this first step in faith, and I face the unknown, the mystery that will be revealed to me as I travel this land. I intend to explore this territory and learn what I can, and to apply myself to mastering the gate that will give me access to the next challenge before me in life. I offer my vulnerable heartscape, and the fallow ground it still contains, to hold the beauty of the world and of myself that I will encounter here. It is so.
I don't know if my feelings are right, but I'm feeling not liked by a group of people I've embraced. It might be right. I am no stranger to people not taking to me. I'm trying to stay calm and figure out what is really happening here.
First, I'm feeling a bit vulnerable lately. I've been acting out a lot of new behaviors and having great results. But even so, the result is that I'm feeling a bit out on a limb with all of the newness. And there is my revelation yesterday, and I'm not going to recover that ground now.
Second, these people are all busy with their own lives. The small actions/inactions that I'm taking as slights are small things, and from people who are busy. Their actions are much more about them than about me. I know that in my head, of course.
Third, I haven't really learned how to be warm and cozy with people, so some of what is going on could really be feedback to me about how I'm coming off. I'm intense and impulsive, not the best combination, I know. I have been guilty of trying too hard in the past. Maybe I am just hearing that message again, and need to make some smallish adjustments.
But the largest thing in all of this is that I just want to be loved and appreciated. I really don't care who loves me or appreciates me. I mean that in the right way. I don't have any hoped pinned on any one of these people. I don't care if any one of them likes me or doesn't like me. I just want to find the ones who do like me. And this ties back beautifully to the first point... my vulnerability.
My gawd, this feels like high school where I was always trying to figure out how to be less intense and be just enough to pull in people. Some things never seem to change in my life. I wonder about that. I wonder if that is because I realized early who I am, or if this is an entire pattern of behavior that should just be released.
OK, here's what I'm going to do.
First, I'm going to just feel all of this emotion running through me. Of course I'm feeling vulnerable. Of course I want to be loved and appreciated. Nothing wrong with feeling all of this.
Second, I'm not feeling people warm up to me, so I'm going to take this as feedback. I have no way right now to know on a case by case basis if this is because it's a wrong match for me, or if I'm just too intense. Either way, the feedback seems to be that my energy in these directions is misplaced for right now. I need to be quiet and watch what happens. I may get a chance to ask some of them directly, but I'm not counting on that. I will be direct if I get the opportunity.
Third, the real heart of this issue is inside of me. I know that as long as I am feeling unloved and unappreciated, that is the kind of energy that is going to come right back to me. I need some time and space to process this by myself. More than anything else right now, I want to learn how to balance my energy in a stronger way. I want to learn how to feel the love and appreciation of the universe for me, and my own love and appreciation for myself. This is the antidote to what I'm feeling.
Oh Great Spirit, I see the road opening up before me, and I willingly commit to walking this road. I take this first step in faith, and I face the unknown, the mystery that will be revealed to me as I travel this land. I intend to explore this territory and learn what I can, and to apply myself to mastering the gate that will give me access to the next challenge before me in life. I offer my vulnerable heartscape, and the fallow ground it still contains, to hold the beauty of the world and of myself that I will encounter here. It is so.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Monsoon Surfing
Over the last few days, I've felt really strong emotions that have brought me into a more alert place. I've been aching to talk to someone about what I'm feeling, but there is no one. (That thought is not exactly correct, but there is no one I felt I could call tonight to talk this through.) I thought tonight that perhaps I should return here and write about what is going on as a way to process it.
Before I started this post, I read my last few posts. Very interesting. Apparently, I thought I was going to keep writing here about the things going on last year. I can see why I thought it would be helpful. But the reality of the last year was that I was learning new ways to process my life, and writing wasn't primary. I learned how to process things using my right brain instead. No linear strings of verbal meaning. Images. Pictures. Dreams. Focused energy. And the writing I did was from a different place. It was more about sucking the marrow out of the dreams, living them as if they had already happened. Things like feeling the wind on my face while I drive around in my new SUV with a moon roof. Things that later came to be because I dreamed them.
I learned spider medicine last year. I learned how to spin an idea, a new idea of something that I want, into a web to hold it when it arrives. I manifested so many things in my world since February 2007 that I could never begin to write here to summarize the story. But this is another story, one worth writing about, and it is not the reason I'm sitting here at the computer long after I want to be asleep.
I realized yesterday that my intention to create a safe environment for myself, a place where the energy was clear and good, and I could play and grow in safety, has been accomplished. I sort of already knew that. But what I didn't know is that my strategy for making that happen, and my focus on this caused me to sort of cocoon myself in here. It fit with my natural aversion for icky energy. My hermit tendencies also include a self-preservation impulse, a desire to feather a nest where I am safe and supported. But what I didn't realize is that I've also locked out other people in this process.
This realization happened because I realized I have a crush on a man in my life. It's not about the idea of a future with this guy. It's about me realizing that there are men out there that have qualities I adore, and about realizing that I've created such a barrier that I don't allow anyone with different energy into my circle. Including male energy.
That's a big thing to realize. My instinct to protect myself has ended up isolating me from anyone not exactly like me. I realize that I'm actually hungry for interaction with male energy, and that I miss having a whole, complete, and different person sharing my space and life.
Perhaps this is a bit like my media fast, which lasted almost two decades, and really only ended when I serendipitously discovered that I had developed a sense of protection that made the artificial protection of a fast no long necessary or valuable. Perhaps I have just reached a point in my growth where my sense of self and self care momentum are strong enough to allow other people into my world without causing me any harm. I didn't have to choose to do it this way. I could have jumped in with both feet many years ago and learned to tread water and swim in the deep end. But that's not the path I chose, for whatever reason.
I feel a bit raw tonight. I feel hot tears in my eyes. I feel my thoughts taking a new route, which is a bit strange. I can feel that they have a habit of running one direction (towards regret and blame) and I feel the well-worn grooves of riding that direction, and yet, I'm not traveling that way. I can feel the natural choice to travel a different path, to show myself compassion and find the highest purpose fulfilled by this course of action. That's a pretty amazing realization, also.
I'm at a huge crossroads in my life. I've been making changes, consciously, deliberately, and making huge strides to becoming the person I want to be. My life is magically changing all around me. Most of it is great and fun and exciting. A few of the things that no longer match are a bit of a surprise because I'm used to them, and it feel awkward to consider the future without them. Like my work situation. I really didn't intend to break it wide open as well. But since that area is also in transition, I realize the opportunity here to really embrace these changes as well, and reinvent my work life again, focusing on what is most juicy and appealing to me right now. I don't have to keep doing the same things just because I've got momentum with them. I'm really free to decide to be someone new, someone with my experience who is using my skills in a new way. That's pretty exciting. And only a little bit scary.
In some ways, this feels like the ongoing story of my life. I've always run hard after personal growth, and focused on how to manage my life and my energy. I've always manifested new and exciting things. So this place I find myself contains echoes of past growth and experiences. One change is that I feel like the valve is wide open! It's a river of change coursing through me this time, instead of a babbling brook, or the trickle of freshly melted snow downhill. It's the runoff from a monsoon in the desert floor, a flash flood of change, leaving everything in it's path touched and changed forever.
I know I am safe, I just wasn't expecting this. It's taking a bit of refocus so I can keep reminding myself of how I'm doing very well, and how all of this is what I've manifested from decades of personal growth work, focused with the laser lens of the things I've been mastering over the last few years. There's a lot of moving water, and this is my chance to learn how to surf my own energy. How many hours have I watched the surfers from the San Clemente beach and marveled at their balance and mastery of that environment? Now it is my turn. I'm paddling out into the swell, and catching a glimpse of the wave that will create my pipe, my tunnel, to ride through.
Before I started this post, I read my last few posts. Very interesting. Apparently, I thought I was going to keep writing here about the things going on last year. I can see why I thought it would be helpful. But the reality of the last year was that I was learning new ways to process my life, and writing wasn't primary. I learned how to process things using my right brain instead. No linear strings of verbal meaning. Images. Pictures. Dreams. Focused energy. And the writing I did was from a different place. It was more about sucking the marrow out of the dreams, living them as if they had already happened. Things like feeling the wind on my face while I drive around in my new SUV with a moon roof. Things that later came to be because I dreamed them.
I learned spider medicine last year. I learned how to spin an idea, a new idea of something that I want, into a web to hold it when it arrives. I manifested so many things in my world since February 2007 that I could never begin to write here to summarize the story. But this is another story, one worth writing about, and it is not the reason I'm sitting here at the computer long after I want to be asleep.
I realized yesterday that my intention to create a safe environment for myself, a place where the energy was clear and good, and I could play and grow in safety, has been accomplished. I sort of already knew that. But what I didn't know is that my strategy for making that happen, and my focus on this caused me to sort of cocoon myself in here. It fit with my natural aversion for icky energy. My hermit tendencies also include a self-preservation impulse, a desire to feather a nest where I am safe and supported. But what I didn't realize is that I've also locked out other people in this process.
This realization happened because I realized I have a crush on a man in my life. It's not about the idea of a future with this guy. It's about me realizing that there are men out there that have qualities I adore, and about realizing that I've created such a barrier that I don't allow anyone with different energy into my circle. Including male energy.
That's a big thing to realize. My instinct to protect myself has ended up isolating me from anyone not exactly like me. I realize that I'm actually hungry for interaction with male energy, and that I miss having a whole, complete, and different person sharing my space and life.
Perhaps this is a bit like my media fast, which lasted almost two decades, and really only ended when I serendipitously discovered that I had developed a sense of protection that made the artificial protection of a fast no long necessary or valuable. Perhaps I have just reached a point in my growth where my sense of self and self care momentum are strong enough to allow other people into my world without causing me any harm. I didn't have to choose to do it this way. I could have jumped in with both feet many years ago and learned to tread water and swim in the deep end. But that's not the path I chose, for whatever reason.
I feel a bit raw tonight. I feel hot tears in my eyes. I feel my thoughts taking a new route, which is a bit strange. I can feel that they have a habit of running one direction (towards regret and blame) and I feel the well-worn grooves of riding that direction, and yet, I'm not traveling that way. I can feel the natural choice to travel a different path, to show myself compassion and find the highest purpose fulfilled by this course of action. That's a pretty amazing realization, also.
I'm at a huge crossroads in my life. I've been making changes, consciously, deliberately, and making huge strides to becoming the person I want to be. My life is magically changing all around me. Most of it is great and fun and exciting. A few of the things that no longer match are a bit of a surprise because I'm used to them, and it feel awkward to consider the future without them. Like my work situation. I really didn't intend to break it wide open as well. But since that area is also in transition, I realize the opportunity here to really embrace these changes as well, and reinvent my work life again, focusing on what is most juicy and appealing to me right now. I don't have to keep doing the same things just because I've got momentum with them. I'm really free to decide to be someone new, someone with my experience who is using my skills in a new way. That's pretty exciting. And only a little bit scary.
In some ways, this feels like the ongoing story of my life. I've always run hard after personal growth, and focused on how to manage my life and my energy. I've always manifested new and exciting things. So this place I find myself contains echoes of past growth and experiences. One change is that I feel like the valve is wide open! It's a river of change coursing through me this time, instead of a babbling brook, or the trickle of freshly melted snow downhill. It's the runoff from a monsoon in the desert floor, a flash flood of change, leaving everything in it's path touched and changed forever.
I know I am safe, I just wasn't expecting this. It's taking a bit of refocus so I can keep reminding myself of how I'm doing very well, and how all of this is what I've manifested from decades of personal growth work, focused with the laser lens of the things I've been mastering over the last few years. There's a lot of moving water, and this is my chance to learn how to surf my own energy. How many hours have I watched the surfers from the San Clemente beach and marveled at their balance and mastery of that environment? Now it is my turn. I'm paddling out into the swell, and catching a glimpse of the wave that will create my pipe, my tunnel, to ride through.
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