My Refuge

I love this blog.

I came out here earlier this week to write, and now, I'm back again. It's so nice to be back. For so long, everything I've been doing has been public. My blogging is public and about generating traffic. It's so nice to come back to a place where I can just be me and let my hair down. In the online world, that is such a treat. And that is why I've gone to such an effort to make this blog anonymous.

It feels good to have a place where I can just think and type and let the inner voice drip out of my fingers as fast as I can type. I've missed this. I've missed having a regular time and place for reflection.

I'm not in one of my best places.

There are many things around me and inside me that are not quite what I want for myself. The chall;enge is to be happy where I am as I make plans to make improvements. The trick is to focus on the journey. I can feel the shift in my energny just from starting to make the changes. That is enough! Yes, the outcomes will be great when they get here. But in the meantime, I can feel the joy of the process, and do my best to clear up the energy of the spaces around me to support those changes. It's time to reconnect with my tools and processes and get back to being the person I am on the inside. The person who knows this three diminisional reality is an illusion and lives accordingly. I've never forgotten this, but it certainly hasn't been my primary focus for a long time.

I'm feeling the energy of having a number nine house for sure!

Right now, there is a lot of mystery, but I've also had a lot of mastery, so it's just a matter of remembering, of reclaiming, and then finding myself back on top of the wave. I'm still in the water with my surf board. It's just a little bit of logistics to get back where I want to be, in the zone.

I can do this! I'm in the process of reinventing myself back in this space.

It seems like I live my life along a sine wave. Peaks and valleys. Energy shifts at the turning points. The path of the earth is a sine wave, so maybe this is a solid metaphor for life as well. I've been slipping, things have been tough and getting tougher for a while. But the energy has shifted and things are truly getting better. It's going to take some time to renew and refresh and get back my former good habits. But I can and will do this and it won't take much effort or time. It will be easy.

I'm really proud of my character. I'm not yet who I want to be, but I see glimpses of a kinder, gentler person shining through all of the time. I'm really proud of who I've become. I like myself more today than I ever have.

I'm Scared

I've been putting up a brave face. But tonight I can't avoid the fact that I'm scared to my bones.

I've been avoiding anything that would cause me to come face to face with the object of my fear. I've sidestepped things, I've procrastinated, I've even denied it was true. None of those strategies helped me to actually stop being so scared, or helped me to find my courage.

Tonight, I faced my fear. I stared it in the eye. I felt my heart flutter and sink. I felt my throat gulp and my mind start to race.

But feeling my fear is not the end of this story.

I feel my fear, and I'm taking a deep breath to calm myself. I feel my fear, and I'm taking a step anyway. I feel my fear, and I'm choosing to remember that I'm powerful at the same time. I feel my fear, and I decide that I can find my way out of this forest. I feel my fear, and I feel my courage begin to rise.

I hear my mind race with negative thoughts, and I calmly remind myself about the truth. It's a "yes, but..." conversation. I can refute the hyperbole of my fears. I can also interject optimism into the space left open by the truth.

The truth is: I've been in tougher spots before, and I've made it through each time. I can repeat my performance once again. I can return to living at the level of my dreams.

See? It wasn't so bad after all.

What I Should Do

• I should be working.
• I should be happy that I have client work.
• I should be able to shake off this feeling of being out of touch, of being crusty.
• I should be happy all of the time.
• I should be productive all of the time.
• I should sleep at night when I go to bed and not just right before I have to wake up.
• I should be able to figure out the things that bug me.
• I should be further long in my ___________________ (career and life come to mind first).
• I should be able to figure out who is my real friend without getting burnt by a fake one in the process.
• I should have already lost the 30 pounds I want to lose.
  
• I should have more time to do what I want to do.
• I should be able to protect myself from the slings and arrows of idiots and people I don't really trust or like.
• I should be in charge all of the time (of myself).
• I should be able to choose who I like instead of being surprised by my own heart.
• I should have my life better organized.
• I should be on top of the things I'm trying to do.
• I should have already organized my contact list.
• I should have my bookkeeping up to date.
• I should like to do the things I need to do.
• I should have found better friends, and more of them.
• I should have run harder after the things I ignored.
• I should have known what was going to be important to me in this phase of my life sooner.
• I should not make silly mistakes or forget things.
• I should be allowed to cry any time I feel like crying.
• I should be able to snap myself out of this glumness.
• I should have thought to make this list sooner in my life.
• I should let myself get this crap out of me so I can move past it.
• I should let myself cry now.
• I should forgive myself for not being perfect.
• I should be grateful for everything good in my life instead of bitching about the small inconveniences.
• I should appreciate that I can take this time to vent, and that I have a safe place to do it.
• I should stop being so hard on myself.
• I should realize that being honest is the best thing I can do in any moment.
• I should stop trying to manage the parts of me that are wild.
• I should take a break, maybe even a nap.
• I should be amazed at the movement in my heart from this simple exercise.
• I should take a deep breath.
• I should call someone who cares about me.
• I should appreciate that I am alive and that I can feel anything, even crap.
• I should appreciate the people around me who do care about me.
• I should appreciate the impact I do have on people and be grateful I can help someone.
• I should take another deep breath.
• I should stop now.
  

Sobbing Into My Pillow

It's almost 5 am and I still haven't been to sleep. When I went to bed, I found my head was racing with feelings and ideas I want to express, words to make a bridge between me and another person I think has the capacity to understand me. Someone I can pour my heart out, even the parts that are a bit wounded and smarting.

I feel that the reason, or perhaps the benefit, of this imaginary conversation, is to allow me to see parts of my life side by side, parts that I normally don't link together. There is a pattern, and by telling the story tonight into my pillow, I saw it. It touched me. I sobbed.

I know that the important thing is for me to release these feelings and go on with my life. But at the same time, I find myself wondering tonight if perhaps I could be allowed to find a real flesh and blood person I could tell my story to.

When I heard my story tonight, I realized I have more storytelling to do. I feel a bit resistant to this, resistant to feeling the pain and vulnerability of being so real. And yet that is exactly the kind of person I want to be, so my reluctance surprises me.

I'm so tired I am having trouble getting my fingers to type all of the correct letters here and none of the wrong letters. Perhaps I should save the rest of my thoughts for another time.

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.