I M Perfect lady

Tag: life

  • My own formation.

    In the past six years I have been learning new software, my body functions the same, it just responds differently.

     

    My arms move, my mouth speaks, my brain thinks yet they are doing things completely in a new way.

     

    It is like waking up one day and your body refuses to do what it used to do; the inner driving force has switched gears completely, it is all backwards.

     

    This new software has me moving in the opposite direction of my old flying formation, I go right and others move left, I go up and the others go down, I feel totally out of zinc.

     

    I am the lady in a country line dancing row… three steps off.

     

    It seems I didn’t have a slow software exchange, but one day a whole complete system was inside of me.

     

    Like a new me hopped inside and began living my life while still in my old life.

     

    I have to give credit to my husband and children for being able to bring this new me into their old lives, to welcome and get used to her new ways.

     

    As we go forth there will still be more steps I will take that will be out of rhythm with theirs, and we falter and then get used to this unique dance of ours.  Me going one way and them going another in harmony.

     

    We are dancing to the same song but moving with our own rhythm.

    I often feel like the odd duck, but oddly a very free duck.  I fly in my own formation. 

     

  • Many years of pain.

    Yoga is the opposite of junk food for the soul and when done, I get left with a wonderful feeling, a relaxed stretched out calmness…a great way to begin my day.

     

    What I marvel at is that I drag my body to the mat, I slowly exit the bed, and begrudgingly tossing the quilt aside, I almost angrily put the heater going, like preparing for my death or torture. 

     

    And it is torture to take this neglected body and bring it back to life, to make the muscles strong, as they should be, or the joints as flexible and mobile as is their nature.

     

    I have noticed in the past few months, when I have been doing just a few yoga sessions a week, that I have fallen backwards in how my body moves.

     

    I can see how we become stiff and weak.  It is by far easier to stay beneath the covers and not make the effort.  But we will have pain either way… as Bikram says, “90 minutes or 90 years.”

     

    By making the difficult choice of getting out of bed, I struggle or suffer for 90 minutes and that will save me many years of pain. 

     

  • The soul that lies beneath.

    Julia Cameron writes in The Artist’s Way…

     

    ”Conditioned as we are to accept other people’s definition of us, this emerging individuality can seem to us like a self-will run riot.  It is not. The snowflake pattern of your soul is emerging. Each of us is a unique, creative individual. But we often blur that uniqueness with sugar, alcohol, drugs, overwork, underplay, bad relations, toxic sex, underexercise, over-TV, undersleep – many and varied forms of junk food for the soul…”

     

    I have never thought of overeating or any of the above as being junk food for the soul. That most of the things that are bad for the body is also bad for our souls.

     

    They blur our uniqueness, keep us living in with a fuzzy image of who we are, what we want, what we feel and where we heading, and above all, make it hard for the soul to shine through.

     

    In fact all the bad habits keep the soul from shining through and yet we believe we need these habits, we literally crave them, and what they are is a black out curtain for the soul.

     

    It is odd to me that we crave what keeps us from being our whole soulful self, and that we want the stuff that darkens who we are.

     

    Perhaps we want to darken our reality.

     

    We want to shut the shades on what is in order to survive…instead of taking actions to remove ourselves from situations in real life, we drape a curtain so we don’t have to see.

     

    It is amazing to me that we become so accustomed to living a life with a darkened drape, that we have no idea how to live a life without them.

     

    Julia Cameron is gently telling us what stands in the way from being you. What items we do to not be alive, aware and unique.

     

    By removing the junk food from our lives we can see what they were covering up.  The more we crave and hold on to things that are not good for our souls, the more chances there is big stuff we are not wanting to see, feel or respond to.

     

    For me, my big mess was revealed first.  I saw a whole life that I had no clue was going on underneath my dark curtain of denial, of self-numbing or fuzzy blurring of reality, and I then had to start eliminating things that contributed to the blanket of dysfunction.

     

    This blanket of dysfunction lived my life for 46 years, a thick layer of stuff that my soul was unable to shine forth through.

     

    It is surprising the difference between living as the dark curtain or the soul that lies beneath. 

    Smug mug pics 1003 
    This is one of my first quilts after the revealation of my big mess….and you can see the sliver of gold, which is the soul trying to emerge.  I called this the Soul Lost.  I now have a better understanding of this quilt 6 years or more later!

  • When I am 80.

    My writing assignment was to write a letter from my eight-year-old self to my adult self, and I sat there blank.  I could not figure out what the little girl needed to tell me.

     

    So, I went and did my morning yoga session. And it came to me that if I look at her sitting within a family of dysfunction and her seeing her older self having escaped, that perhaps then there would be lots to say.

     

    My little self would look upon this adult woman and admire the strength it took for her to walk the walk needed to walk the walk to get her out of the situation of her childhood and to now be working on becoming more artful self.

     

    She at 8 could look upon me where I stand today and be so grateful that I was able to circle back and regain the ownership and awareness of her soul. 

     

    That I was able to traverse the wild churning waters of abuse and arrive seemingly unscathed and actually prospering as an adult woman, she would be amazed at my ability to withstand the truth and then to make new choices based upon it.

     

    She would be so grateful that I am no longer in abusive relationships or that I am still being victimized, that I have learned how to do self care, to speak for my self and have the strength to follow through.

     

    She would breath a sigh of relief to know that we survived and are now heading into an even brighter future, where I am honing my self-awareness with yoga and The Artist’s Way, that we are on the pathway of self-loving.

    At times I too find it hard to see the distance I traveled and the depth and breath of change that my life has withstood…I stand with my little girl in awe of where we have been and sit in gratitude we not only survived but also are thriving.

     

    What brings me the most peace is that I can look straight into my little girl’s eyes and feel proud and wise and strong, and not have to look away in shame and guilt.

     

    I feel so strongly confident that we are on the right path, and that when I am 80; I will look upon this 52-year-old self the same way.

     

    And in fact there is a writing assignment to write a letter from your 80-year-old self to your 50-year-old self.

     

    I found that much easier, for I was telling me what the Artist’s Way is teaching me, to be more artful, more daring, more wild in learning new things and experimenting, to go out and grasp all the delights the world has to offer, to change your routine, to add some spice and thrill, to toss in colorful experiences…

     

    I want to be at 80, what I am today, but more of it. 

     

    I want to look backwards at the next 30 years and be breathless at what I did!

     

    Each Artist’s date is adding to the list of things that will blow my mind as I look back when I am 80.

     

     

     

     

  • Pain Free

    "A huge part of our task becomes noticing unskillful reactions and learning to let them go. This is not a denial of some part of our self. It is simply the abandoning of actions that cause harm and suffering (mostly to ourselves). When we pick up a hot utensil on the stove, we don’t have to think about who we are before we drop it, or who we might become if we dropped it, or become afraid that we would not be authentic to ourselves if we drop it—it’s painful and we drop it!Most of us only make such a mistake once. It’s the same in the heart, except that the hot utensil has been in our hand so long, maybe most of our life, that we’ve forgotten what not buring feels like or don’t know who we would be without the burning, we are afraid to put it down. This may sound absurd, but when you think how hard it is to stop being defensive in the face of criticism, or to let go of self-judgment, it makes sense.  But that doesn’t mean easy.”                       Sean Felt

     

    I saw this posted on Facebook, and find that it is the perfect paragraph I was seeking to explain how it is easier to hang on and continuing doing the same hurtful thing instead of letting go and changing. 

    It seems incredibly insane to want to hold near and dear to you things that cause you pain, but if the only ‘normal’ you have ever known feels this way, it isn’t painful it is love.

    Which is why it is so very difficult to get people to drop the burning utensils, for they have become calloused and acclimated and have forgotten what not burning feels like.

    Not burning feels like an enemy when it is actually your friend.

    This flipped upside down reactionary response to clutch hurtful things and steer away from cool non-hurtful ones, creates a journey filled with self inflicted pain for we don’t know how to let go.

    As incredible as it seems it is ‘easier’ to hang on than let go.

    It is the only self we know, this painful hurting self, we fear being a pain free self.  

    I have found that it is incredibly hard to let go and drop that which hurts you, when you had labeled hurt love.

    I wasn’t dropping abuse… I was dropping love.

    It seems so silly that you will not release yourself from hurt, but we don’t call it hurt we call it love.

    And in this flipped out state, our reactions are the opposite of what is normal.  Clutching hurt we push away from real love.

    We live as this anomaly, upside down and inside out.

    It’s not easy to change this, it will take Herculean efforts to return your self to normal responses, to reset your reactions to what hurts and what doesn’t, to feel normal while pain free.

     

  • Everything as it is.

    There is this thing called ‘something’ that keeps you from being totally happy, at peace…something precedes your every step and lives out in front of you stealing your peace, and when you can dismantle the something making machine, you will find life a friendly place to be.

     

    It wasn’t until I lost ‘something’ that I found it had stood between life and me.

     

    Perhaps it was the absence of desiring, wanting, being disappointed or stressed that felt odd, or the lack of plans or having to reach a certain place, that I realized it was gone.

     

    This elusive something changes and ties strings to all your destinations and gatherings, it runs ahead and creates images for you to reach for and scurries off before you arrive, is always one step ahead of you.

     

    In my mind it wasn’t crystal clear, what the something was, but I searched for it like a hidden treasure in each place when I arrived.

     

    I had an image, a feeling or a desire to be fulfilled when I arrived.  I sought it and when it wasn’t found, I left disappointed.

     

    This future something rode ahead of my life planting little seeds of desire for me to harvest when I came behind it, sprinkling my world with what I thought were dreams, when in fact they were moment wreckers.

     

    These moment wreckers became larger than reality, like an overlay, I sought them more than I appreciated what was actually there.

     

    On my latest mini vacation, I was pleasantly surprised I had arrived ahead of something.

     

    I arrived minus a preplanned or arranged idea in my head.

     

    Usually, I had a something plan set in my head that a place had to match.

     

    Whether it was a mood or experience I had to find a certain thing to make me happy.   I didn’t arrive happy, but had to find something to make me so.

     

    I may be unable to articulate this, but to travel with zero expectations, and instead see how you feel when you arrive is totally the opposite of my old traveling/living days.

     

    Before a romantic getaway had to deliver a certain number of things to make it so, perhaps the right sunset, the perfect dinner, the right clothing, the awesome motel, the right weather, the right vehicle, the temperature…you get the picture.

     

    In fact I painted a picture in my mind and then IF reality didn’t match most of it, I wasn’t fully satisfied.

     

    And it can happen in the smallest of situations or on a weekend getaway or two week vacation.  Prior to going your mind sets in motion a something trail that you have to follow and depending upon how many things you match, your trip will be a success.

     

    Imagine the insanity of your trip having to measure up to a trip in your head, a desire or fantasy list?

     

    This last little getaway I forgot to pack the list of something.

     

    I had no preset emotions, feelings, desires and things to capture in order for it to be completed.

     

    In its place instead was arriving…like a free motion painting.

     

    Creating an artful vacation by being inspired in each moment, not knowing what you need until you see it, and bringing it in to your vacation instead of hunting for the right thing, the right thing came to you.

     

    Giving up something you can greet everything as it is.

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    We came around a corner and this guy caught my attention…he was standing in front of an Art Gallery…he beckoned me inside.

     

  • And Me

    Today my husband and I leave for a few days, just him and I and the 1983 Chevy truck. 

     

    While it may not seem like a big thing, what kind of car you drive, we do however have a few vehicles that bring out the date in you, and the Big Blue Truck is one.

     

    It doesn’t see the open road much, it rarely has plates on it and surely not insurance.  It is used mainly for plowing snow and is kept in the barn on hay…well actually beach sand, but I kid him.

     

    He bought it brand new in 1982, the fall he and I began dating.  He has had it painted, a new engine, running boards and running lights, chrome wheels, loud mufflers etc.  It is a well-loved truck…a truck of young boys dream.

     

    Before taking it out on the open road, he had a few things to fix, rear breaks, led to new break lines, led to wheel bearings, and to things called spider gears (well we may let that go and pray for the best), but he won’t back out of our driveway until he is assured it is good running shape….  I have no idea what these things look like, but his concern for the truck equals his care for the things he loves.

     

    Overall, it is his care that has kept the truck going, our love going, our family going.  He is a man who pays attention to the details.  He catches things before they are way far-gone, he hears little sounds the truck makes telling him which part needs his attention, just as he notices when any of us are just a hair off. 

     

    If he had his way, we would all be kept on hay in a barn, safe, sound and out of harms way…only to be taken out for joy rides.

     

    I am so thrilled to be going on a joy ride with a man who loves, who cares and who shows it.

     

    He has taught me how to care, how to love…we have traveled far and are very lucky that we can dip back into our earlier years and enjoy dating. 

     

    Today is his birthday…and he will be like a young kid again driving along in his big blue truck…28 years since he bought it he still loving it, and me! 

     

    IMG_5344 

    My husband just came back from the parts store, the part we were waiting on did not come in.  He was able to get a part for my Mail Jeep…a wheel bearing that too has been making noises.  So, we will continue on…leaving the Chevy for dates near home. 

    This is our first time taking the Jeep on vacation…it will be a good cool ride. Air.

    IMG_5075 

     

  • Not in Harmony

    Within me there is a frustrating dilemma, speaking out in a society that is uncomfortable about suicide or remaining silent.

     

    Silent seems dishonorable or maybe rude to not hear such an inhumane scream of suffering…indifference even.

     

    How is it possible to turn away from such a blatant act of desperation?  Surely we want to learn from this.

     

    Do we dare listen to the message?

     

    What is the message? 

     

    How is it possible to be so out of alternatives, to be so backed into a corner where living is ruled out?

     

    Where there isn’t a sliver of hope left.

     

    What is there to learn? 

    What can she teach us?  

    What are the signs? 

     

    There are papers in two different states reporting this death.  The out-of-State paper writes, “Evidence collected by the patrol indicates that she meant to step into the path of the truck.”  And the local paper writes how wonderful she was, an honor student, caring and wise beyond her years, etc.

     

    The pictures of don’t match. 

     

    What was she trying to tell us in her last breath?

     

    What is the contrast of her life and death here to show us?

     

    Due to the drastic nature of her death it seems her life had to equal it somehow, yet her life doesn’t seem to match.

     

    What lies beneath?

     

    I have heard that suicide is a selfish act, but perhaps this is way wrong.  You wonder if she is using her death to say something, loud, clear and unmistakable.

     

    Where it is impossible to call it an accident or natural cause, where it is putting her whole life out there for the world to see.

     

    What is it that she wants us to see?

     

    How can we learn from her life, to see her pathway and find the signs that were leading her to this end, so that we can put in alternative roads for others?

     

    How can her death be used for another’s life?

     

    While we pay close attention to mysterious deaths of the body and perform autopsies, we don’t look equally into suicides to see the path that leads there.

     

    What put her on this road?

     

    What I know is people who are loved, nurtured and who feel safe on this planet; they don’t kill themselves in order to leave.

     

    While it may be controversy to speak of suicide, I am thinking by not speaking of it we are screaming louder that we don’t want to hear about your suffering.

     

    If perhaps as a society we could talk openly and freely about pain and suffering, if it was okay to talk about not wanting to live, to be open and honest, perhaps we then could stop people who feel that those who suffer too much have to leave, that there is no room here for those who suffer.

     

    How we as adults talk about her death, shows the youth how much we embrace reality and truth, how much we are willing to be with those who suffer.

     

    It just seems to me, how wonderful it would be if she could spare another soul her journey.  And if we can change our consciousness about suicide, her death will not be in vain.

     

    She was here to teach us how to become more deeply aware of the signs of covering up suffering, for her social life and her death are not in harmony.

     

     

  • My own Little Plot

    It is hard to believe that I lived a life without a self that I had disappeared from my life and had not even noticed it, for I left my life before I had a life.

     

    Without knowing I got a life of my own, I spent all my time in other people’s business, leaving my own life quite vacant.

     

    I simply didn’t live a separated life.

     

    The biggest part of myself was lived in the midst of other people’s world, what I meant to them, how I made them feel, I was an interchangeable part to them.

     

    I was a piece of them.

     

    When I latched on to a person who needed me, I came alive.

     

    Set me alone…I had no value.

     

    Having zero value by myself left me very much dependent upon others, hence the word co-dependent, for my sense of self.

     

    Finding a self that stood alone was near impossible.

    I had no definition if the words sister, mother, daughter, wife, friend were not around.

     

    Who was I to myself?

     

    I wasn’t as good a friend to me as I was to my friends, nor did I mother myself as wonderful as I tried to mother my children, nor was a good partner to myself as I was to my husband.

     

    In the end all my efforts outside of myself left me completely empty…for I ignored my self while taking care of others.

     

    Imagine 46 years with nothing to show for my self.

     

    My self had lived silently still while I toiled in people’s lives.

     

    It is like weeding and tending a garden that you are unable to eat from, leaving you starving while they enjoy the crop you took care of.

     

    Slaving over their fields while my own was over run from neglect.

     

    What freedom came when I understood we are all gardeners of our own lives, that each of us can plant the kinds of things we love, and pull up and out the things that prick us.

     

    I love my life now that I see it as my own little plot!

     

  • Enter In

    Julia Cameron writes in The Artist’s Way, “I like to think of the mind as a room.  In that room, we keep all our usual ideas about life, God, what’s possible and what’s not.  The room has a door.  That door is ever so slightly ajar, and outside we can see a great deal of dazzling light.  Out there in the dazzling light are a lot of new ideas that we consider too far-out for us, and so we keep them out there. The ideas we are comfortable with are in the room with us. The other ideas are out, and we keep them out.”

     

    “In our ordinary, prerecovery life, when we would hear something weird or threatening, we’d just grab the doorknob and pull the door shut.  Fast.”

     

    “Inner work triggering outer change?  Ridiculous! (Slam the door.) God bother to help my own creative recovery? (Slam.)  Synchronicity supporting my artist with serendipitous coincidences? (Slam, slam, slam.)

     

    “Now that we are in creative recovery, there is another approach we need to try. To do this, we gently set aside our skepticism – for later us, if we need it – and when a weird idea or coincidence whizzes by, we gently nudge the door a little further open.”

     

    “Setting skepticism aside, even briefly, can make for very interesting explorations.  In creative recovery, it is not necessary that we change any of our beliefs.  It is necessary that we examine them.”

     

    “More than anything else, creative recovery is an exercise in open-mindedness.  Again, picture your mind as that room with the door slightly ajar. Nudging the door open a bit more is what makes for open-mindedness. Begin, this week, to consciously practice opening your mind.”      Julia

     

     

    Yesterday I was panicked due to my one-day weekend, and I was not open to letting the chores go and just using it as my play day as I had threatened to do.  I slammed the door on playing, staying with old habits of getting my jobs done first.

     

    I was crabby but doing the work.  Resenting that I couldn’t play.

     

    It is like being locked in a room to which you have the key, yet unable to actually use it to turn yourself free.

     

    There is an exchange I can’t see to agree with, messy house in exchange for playing!

     

    I want both.  And if I stay that course, I will continue exchanging playtime for work time, for as we all know there is always another job to be done.

     

    She is suggesting that we ‘use’ this excuse in order to keep our Artist from going to explore the wide-open world, that we have become comfortable in the cramped workspace.

     

    My grumpiness spread like a virus, or tried to, but most left me alone in my unhappiness. 

     

    My daughter took her playtime first, and later on in the fading daylight mowed the grass.  My resentment at her is that she has mastered the art of play over work time…and is doing what I can’t allow me to do. 

     

    I blame her for me being unable to exchange playing for a clean house. 

     

    As I sit with this thought, I used to get appreciation and attention for keeping my mother’s house in order…and the opposite may be true, wrath if I didn’t help.

     

    I recall many siblings not caring where I cared too much.

     

    When I thought I cared about a clean house, in fact I cared what my mother thought of me.

     

    Perhaps, this is the issue that needs to be examined. 
    ”I am better if I have a clean house, even if I am grumpy.”

     

    Who do I like better or who feels better inside?

     

    It seems my self-identity is wrapped up in what I do and how external things look. 

     

    How brave to let it all go and play…That is the challenge this week…being a child doing what she feels like, letting go of responsibilites that can wait.  The 'mother' in my head may want me to slam the door to fun, but I have to be strong enough to nudge it open and enter in.