I M Perfect lady

Tag: life

  • Postal Pressure Cooker

    My five days of work is done this week, my weekend begins on Sunday. Yesterday the man who will begin doing Saturdays for me rode along on the mail route.

    It is interesting to see how a man looks at the route, compared to a woman. He sees the route, but not what his is going to be delivering.

    He is a bus driver during the week, so he was concentrating on the route, thinking that knowing the route and learning to drive on the right is the hardest part of the job.

    He failed to understand you don’t get to do the driving until you get all the mail sorted, and in order to sort quickly, you practice and practice and memorize and memorize.

    He kept going back to his strengths… his knowing bus routes and driving a bus.

    And I would focus on what he doesn’t know yet…sorting mail.

    The sorting sets the tone, sets the pace and will slurp up many hours of daylight, if you don’t know where the letter in your hand goes, and you have three trays of mail, each holding 300 plus pieces.

    Overlooking this part puzzled me, and I quickly learned that the only way he will learn is by doing, so I left him at the end of the day with a tub of catalogs, each needing to find their home in the 469 slots.

    Nothing teaches like experience.

    Nothing shows you how much you don’t know than by standing with one small catalog searching for its home, and watching the time slip away, while you hunt and hunt and hunt again, the name not meaning anything, the road seeming lost among the many small dirt roads, and you trying to remember which part of the route it was on, the beginning middle or end, and looking upon the pile yet to go…the 469 slots all seem alike, the names printed below unfamiliar, the five digit fire numbers mocking with a mysterious sequence, the roads failing to click in route formation, now you know what you don’t know!

    The stance of ineptness is so clear it feels overwhelming. And the knowing that you have 469 houses waiting for their mail.

    We are one of the small offices who get their mail that is mixed up and needs to be sorted, most mail comes to the carrier presorted to the route, and you just take it out and deliver.

    In our office you can only deliver what you know.
    Isn’t that a great metaphor for life that we have to be willing to not know until we know, and that we can’t give out what we don’t know?

    It takes a certain person to be able to do this job, and we don’t know until they are placed in the postal pressure cooker.

  • Will you see?

    I am falling into a routine of working each day, of getting up, doing yoga, reading, writing, and heading out to toss mail.

    As I arrive at the Post Office each day, another pile of mail greets me, more magazines, catalogs, political ads, and a few trays of mail to sort; a never ending job.

    Not so different from being a stay at home mom, where the dishes, clothes and housework, cycled into a never-ending job.

    In order to keep the mundane from being so mundane, it is our responsibility to look for nuances of differences.

    From sharing a few words with a waiting person at the mailbox, to bringing in treats, to seeing the land as you drive upon to change what you listen to as you drive along.

    It is the same, but different each and every day.
    And I think we can look at life as a routine, no matter what it is we do, or look at the miracle of miracles that accompany us each day.

    How many miracles will you see?

  • The Wise Listened

    I only spent one hour in her presence and wanted to follow her home, and in fact we may have been behind her motor home as she left our town, I had the chance but turned off as our road appeared, allowing her to leave me wanting more.

    It wasn’t so much her story but rather the affirmations I felt as I listened to her.  I wanted more.

    Her story and mine shared some similar roads, and I could see how her courage was grown, how she shined in her individuality how comfortable she is in her skin, although I know it wasn’t always so.

    She spoke of her childhood in a tone of ‘this is what it was’ marveling with us and showing us how those steps were gifts that she used to become who she is today. 

    Dr. Maya Angelou.

    From an abused mute child to one who had us all sitting in rapt attention to each word, insight and profound wisdom she uttered.

    Maybe we can’t listen to another until they have something worthwhile to share.

    She has enough wisdom inside, and I feel I just got one little tiny peek.

    A peek of who I will be!

    She makes life seem only worthwhile if it is colorful; with characters and scenes that put fiction to shame.

    It’s like the more you suffer, the better the storyteller you will become and how much more interesting the story will be to tell.

    She didn’t hide the ‘shameful’ parts, rather she allowed them their truths to stand equal to the kinder parts, the happier times and she weaved them all together into one strand of self.

    The audience followed her as she led us on her journey as we sampled a few moments of significance that made her who she is today.

    A colorful woman telling us this isn’t a rehearsal, so get on and live life.

    Thanks Dr. Maya Angelou for taking the journey to come and speak to us today.

    We are just another spot on her journey, and she a spot in ours.

    A connection and energy exchanged.

    I left feeling she was giving us a hand up, as she reminded us of all who came before us, what their cost was, and how we don’t have the right to waste our time being less than who we can be.

     A wise woman sat on that stage and the wise listened.

     

  • Originality is the New Norm.

    As I thought about compassionate or empathetic picketers, I wondered what their signs would say, and if I were to join, what message would my sign display.

    I think my sign would be for those who were abused as children, for those who grew to be mental due to the nature of being hurt by those they loved.

    My sign would encourage them speak their truth and walk strong, knowing that you get stronger with each voiced memory and feeling, airing out the long held secrets.

    I would dispel the belief that there is a normal, a perfect way to be, and instead show them my imperfect me.

    I could begin a group of I M Perfect people.

    People who have walked in the darkness, been lost in mental confusion, denial and pain, who are tired of trying to be something they can never be.

    Normal. 

    Trying to be normal is trying to be not you.

    Normal.

    What is Normal?  

    Who is the measure and rule of normal? 

    I have yet to meet one normal person. 

    I think it is a myth.

    Maybe my sign would say, “There is No Normal” or “This is My Normal.”

    I will picket normal. 

    If we get rid of normal, we can get rid of all the prejudices against abnormal people.

    By taking normal out of the picture, we all become abnormal.

    Well, I had to look up ‘Normal’.

    1.                   usual: conforming to the usual standard, type, or custom

    2.                   healthy: physically, mentally, and emotionally healthy

    3.                   occurring naturally: maintained or occurring in a natural state.

    What is the usual standard anymore?  Is there truly one?

    I have to look up ‘abnormal’.

    Not normal; not typical or usual or regular or conforming to a norm.

    What we call abnormal is not conforming to a norm?

    But what if we can’t conform to norm, because we didn’t have a norm to conform to?  Then what?

    Are we abnormal?

    I would hasten to bet that there are more abnormal folks than normal. 

    Did you know that 20% of the homes have a mom and dad?  Yet we still call that ‘typical’ even when 80% of homes are not that.

    I bet reality has changed, but we forgot to change the norms. 

    There are no Norms in reality only originality.

    Originality is the new Norm.

  • Upset the Arrangement.

    There is a land called, “It would be Nice” and it is full of wonderful well-intentioned dreamers, folks who are stolen from reality in a fraction of a second.

     

    One second you are here, and before you even see yourself leave you are there, and once you are there; you can only know it by how you feel.

     

    In the land of it would be nice, you feel unhappy, unsatisfied, discontent no longer wanting to be where you are, but someplace else doing something else, with someone else. 

     

    While sounding like a nice place, it leaves you uneasy.

     

    No one warned me of this phrase and how it doesn’t allow you to feel what is going on right here and right now, for as soon as you say the words, “it would be nice,” you change locations and your feelings follow.

     

    As Byron Katie stated in one of her books, you can be sitting on a couch and feel like it is heaven, until you think, “It would be nice to have a pillow”, and then you are uncomfortable with just the couch.

     

    From Heaven to Hell without moving anywhere except in your mind.

     

    The three words Byron Katie says cause the most suffering are, would, should and could.

     

    What I didn’t know is that these words are the expressways out of reality, an escape route to a place far from where you are standing.

     

    You mind leaves reality, and takes your feelings with, and all that is left is the physical body, but it can’t feel or know it is in the here and now, for the mind and awareness are gone.

     

    Have you ever driven a car and can’t recall passing things, like ‘mindless driving’.  Your driving but your mind is elsewhere, that is leaving reality.

     

    Once you are aware of how much you are not aware, it is scary to know how little in a day you are actually present and fully connected to what is.

     

    Often times it is when you are doing ‘mindless’ tasks, or when you are where you don’t want to be, you visualize yourself to be elsewhere. 

     

    Most often you are unhappy with how life is operating at this moment and want to affect change, and do…but all you really change is leaving the scene in your mind.

     

    Leaving what is for what should be.

     

    Not wanting what is there or wanting more than what is there and even less, forever trying to arrange life to suit your mind.

     

    I can visualize three islands, Would be, Should be, and Could be, the islands of life’s discontent!

     

    It takes practice and sheer determination to not try and rearrange life as it appears, to just sit softly in acceptance being bent by life, instead of trying to bend life into what you feel would be better.

     

    It’s to go from being a duck on a river trying to direct the flow, to being a duck floating in total submission.

     

    Floating in total submission doesn’t take away from the duck or the river; it shows them in perfect harmony.

     

    It seems insane that the mind wants to make corrections to what is happening right now, but it does, and perhaps that is the meaning of insanity.

     

    Insanity is the mind trying to control the Universe.

     

    I had to look up the word Insane.

    It means, pertaining to, or characteristic of a person who is mentally deranged.

     

    So, I had to look up the word deranged.

     

    Transitive verb deranged-·ranged′, deranging-·rang′·ing. to upset the arrangement.

     

    To upset the arrangement.

     

    Does that mean to Upset arrangement of reality?

    To be upset with life?

    To want to arrange things better, different, more to your liking, to be forever at war with reality?

     

    If it is true then we all are insane in various degrees, with mild or extreme tendencies, and perhaps the tougher reality is to swallow, the more extreme the Upset.

     

    So when people get upset, due to the fact they don’t like arrangement of life, they are mentally derranged or insane.

     

    The opposite of insanity is total acceptance to what is.

     

    Is that right?  That if you are not mentally with reality you are arranging it differently in your mind, you upset the arrangement to suit your needs, then you are insane.

     

    If this is the case, then I truly was insane and mentally deranged for most of my life, and still fall into this position from time to time.

     

    Insanity is to upset the arrangement.

     

     

  • Thy Will Be Done

    A thought came to me last night as I lay down to rest, “Being a Victim is easy….”

     

    Being a victim requires NOTHING from you, you get to just sit and wait for the world to change.

     

    Victims always have someone to blame you are never held accountable, you are blame free, a loving kind individual and the world is beating you up.

     

    Someone is always coming in and wrecking your world so you lose your kind demeanor.

     

    It is by far easier to point a finger at the cause of why you act the way you act, than it is to change your actions.

     

    “If someone can steal your peace, You are the Loser”…says, Bikram.

     

    I just never felt to the depth of my soul, that being a victim was the easy way out that it required less than actually making a change.

     

    It seems that it is more painful to be a victim, but now I am wondering if that is true?  Maybe it is actually harder to change, to walk out of the old patterns, and do something different.

     

    Make a new response; require more from your self and less from the world, to bring back to you the ownership of all your behaviors.

     

    Instead of people out there pushing your buttons, keep your fingers on your own buttons; turn the buttons inward, so when you explode, it was you who did it, not some outside source.

     

    Changing from victim to empower is wearing your emotional clothes inside out, so all the buttons are on the inside, where there is no one to blame but yourself, each and every time you speak or act out, you are the only one hurting yourself.

     

    Is it possible to be Masochistic to self?

     

    It is a cycle of self-abuse.

     

    How is it easier to remain in that role, than it is to stop the pain?

     

    It just doesn’t seem right that it is easier to be hurt over and over, to have your hopes and dreams dashed again and again?

     

    How is it so much easier to be so out of control of your self?

     

    And yet, most of the victims I know are working so hard to control the world and yet are unable to see that they are the ones out of control in their own world.

     

    There is a slight but profound difference between being in control in a world that’s in control, or being out of control by and out of control world.

     

    The mirror affect yet again.

     

    If you are a victim, the world is out to get you.

     

    When you are not, the world is out to give you all that you could ever dream and more.

     

    It is literally impossible to be kind in a mad world, the laws of the Universe works beautifully always, "Thy will be done".

     

  • What Isn’t There to See!


    To be upset over what you don't have is to waste what you do have. 

     ~Ken S. Keyes

     

    We have two eyes and I am thinking we need to use them for two separate things; one to see what we have and the other what is missing.  I also suggest keep one eye working more than the other, perhaps even wear a patch over the one who is a forever counting what is Not here.

     

    Our train of thoughts need to keep the track to the positive eye well used, and abandon the tracks to the one that is forever reporting the doom and gloom, the worrier, the spoil sport, the one that is adding up a long column of negatives, when there is a whole world of good to be calculated.

     

    I know that by switching how I look upon my job makes a difference, if I can see all the positives, the downsides will fade from neglect.

     

    I heard Dr. Maya Angelou say of people who whine, ‘stop you will let them know a Victim is in the area.’

     

    So in the vicinity of your voice how is it being heard?

     

    What are you mentioning most often, the things going right or what is going wrong?

     

    We are either a victim commentator of life or one that sees things as they are and rolls by accepting, being enthusiastic or having enjoyment in what is, as Eckhart Tolle suggests.

     

    If you can accept what is going on, you are no longer a victim.

     

    When you fight it, you become a victim to It, no matter what It is.

     

    It is raining and you want sunshine, the rain will victimize you.

    Just by wanting what is not there, IT takes your power; your eyes are on what isn’t happening.

     

    When you keep your strongest eye on what isn’t happening, you waste what you have in life.

     

    Can you have what you don’t see?

     

    Yet we believe we can have what we don’t see by focusing on what isn’t there.

     

    How backwards this all is…What we can see, we don’t and what we don’t we focus on.

     

    Seeing what isn’t and not seeing what is.

     

    Like a trick mirror, reporting back what isn’t there to see!

     

  • Cheering for the Butterfly!

    We would rather be ruined than changed;
    We would rather die in our dread
    Than climb the cross of the moment
    And let our illusions die.

    ~W.H. Auden

     

    As I sit in the graveyard of my illusions, I am left with merging emotions, crashing upon each other, overlapping – sorrow and freedom, sadness and joy, feeling left out and being spared, all swaying within like ghosts.

     

    Memories of happier times try to overpower awareness of reality’s raw experiences; a game of pretend almost arises, like an abused woman who refuses to see the man who beat her, by focusing on the good times.

     

    Hope plans a future that isn’t to be, sorrow knowing you can never go home.

     

    Being sprung free and yearning for the cage.

     

    Celebrating while crying.

     

    Unable to firmly grasp one without feeling the loss of the other.

     

    It feels like I am dying while alive, grieving for my own self.

     

    Having one foot in the grave of my old life, while learning to walk in my new.

     

    The hardest part is to let me die, to be strong and keep killing the illusion, the dysfunctional relationships, letting them go on without me.

     

    I wish I could say I am tough and this is easy to feel the sorrow and pain as another section of my life dies…and I am left in the space of empty.

     

    The wise say that without change we would have no butterflies.

     

    But the time between caterpillar and butterfly is you are neither, suspended in time…

     

    You don’t fit with the caterpillars anymore, and you still have no wings to fly.

     

    In a cocoon I live, one life not finished and new one not fully begun.

     

    Suspended in soup of transition.

     

    Crying for the caterpillar and cheering for the Butterfly!

     

  • Life with Empty Arms.

    I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs. 

    ~Frederick Douglass, escaped slave

     

    Last night in a dream I was able to see what I carried around, what I have been trying to put down or at least find the owner.

     

    In my dream I was holding a boneless fat baby and dragging this huge duffle bag, which was his.

     

    Life seemed to be moving along all around me, opportunities to engage, from adventures to shopping to eating in fine diners, people coming and going, and there I was with the floppy baby.

     

    I couldn’t get a good grip to hold it, for the chub was slippery and I tried really hard to keep its head up and limbs looking normal, while dragging this huge heavy bag.

     

    In yoga today, it came to me that this represents my spineless self, the one who didn’t stand for anything, but instead had to be carried around.  And this self came with a ton of baggage.

     

    This baby was forever hungry; all I recall is the mouth under a head of wild hair.

     

    What a great overview of seeing my self with carting around a belief system that kept me from being me and engaging in life.

     

    I knew that the baby wasn’t mine and was searching for the owner, being my responsible self; I was unable to just drop it.

     

    This also shows my dedication in not letting go, that I expect to find a person to take my old self from me, instead of just doing the job myself.

     

    Now that I have this visual of how it feels to live with self with so much baggage, perhaps I will be able to just let it go.

     

    Let it go and walk away free.

     

    Free to enjoy life with empty arms!

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Puzzle Called Me.

    “The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer, but rather what they miss.” 

    ~Thomas Carlyle

     

    Putting together our lives is like a puzzle without a picture, we find what goes together and what doesn’t.

     

    Some parts fit easily and others will take practice and consorted effort to work them into place.

     

    271 days have passed since the first of the year, and it was my intention and desire to work with my body each day in yoga to bend it back into shape.

     

    265 days I made it to the mat and struggled against flab, weak muscles, ouchy joints, frozen stiff muscles not to mention a lazy attitude that would rather, snuggle.

     

    Had I not started this journey I would have missed the feelings of muscles, strong flexible muscles and a feeling of wonder taking care of self.

     

    It has rubbed off in other areas, I am more mindful of what I eat and even how much or if I am hungry.

     

    I am so grateful that I have worked to eliminate the suffering my body was heading into and I will not miss knowing what it is like to have a strong body.

    My strong body seems to help with keeping my mind strong as well, that when you get strong in one area, the others tag along.

     

    Each day I am so proud of myself when I take the time and effort, the pain and suffering on the mat, as yoga changes the shape of me, the feel of me, and the overall puzzle called me.