I M Perfect lady

Tag: living

  • If you don’t know…

    I heard Wayne Dyer speak of what we know, and the comparrison to what we don't know and yet how we live in the small place believing only in what we know.

    As I heard him talk about moving out of the small space of knowing into the mystery of unknown and live from there, it is exactly as I did with my daughter yesterday.

    Somehow, in my mind, I believed that I had to know what was best…and then give my advice in how to get there.  When in actuality, it is just a mind game, a place of believing you know, while the unknown is really alive and moving.

    When I fully embrace that I can't know, I am free.  It is only when I feel I am supposed to know and it is impossible to know, that I feel out of control.

    Yet if I fully embrace the out of controllness of unknowing I am free.

    Not sure if I can articulate this correctly, but the feelings inside are completely different.

    As a mother who FEELS she should know, and it is impossible to know, I feel anxiety and stress.

    As a mother who FEELS she can't know and doesn't know, she is totally at one with the mystery of the unknown.  I love that I am not supposed to know.

    I was okay not knowing where I was going, but somehow the mother part was still plugged into believing that I know, as far as my kids are concerned.

    It seemed like a careless mother to not know.  So much for the phrase, "Mother knows best…"

    What advice can you give if you don't know?

     

  • Days to Slip By

    My brother's Excel class had him calculating out the number of days he has lived so far, and I did the same.  Today is number 19,365 for me!

    That is how many mornings I woke up and seen a new day.

    Yet for the first many thousands, I woke up living my life frozen in a pattern that was preset and one that seemed my destiny.

    I even recall feeling the panic feelings of not being able to stop the way I was living, that there were so many people attached to the movement of my life. That me changing would be too disruptive, but that at some point, they will need me less and then there will be an opportunity to be free.

    The more I explored how stuck I was, the more I wanted to live differently, but I had no idea how to suddenly change my life.  

    And then, Life seemed to suddenly change…and I followed it. But this time, I did it completely different.  I hadn't realized at the time that I was going to transform my whole life.   All I was doing was following my body and my feelings.

    I just hadn't realized realized realized, that I hadn't been living my life from the inside out.  I didn't really know how much of my life was lived for others, Until it came to me to follow my body and feelings.

    The huge amounts of changes that ensued showed me how much of me and my life had been lived for others…and by me being fake.

    I wouldn't have called it living fake, I would have said, "I am putting aside my feelings and my life unselfishly to make another happy." Believing that this is a kind and loving thing to do.

    I lived 16, 775 days (yep I did the math 😉 pushing aside my feelings in order to make another happy.  I lived disconnected from my body, disassociated from my emotions, and very focused on others…for thousands of days.

    I would awaken each day carrying many lives upon my shoulders…worrying, wondering, thinking, and pondering their lives, giving very little thoughts to me and my life.  My life was their life.

    I had me pushed so far back, there wasn't but a teeny bit of me showing. 

    It seems impossible now.  It seems scary to me to live a life with so little of me showing. To live without access to my feelings and emotions, to live stoically and remotely.  To shut down and close off my life in order for another to be happy and at peace.  

    You can't go and get those days back, they have been breathed, lived and passed by.  How much I missed, I can't even begin to imagine, how many emotions I pushed down and away for the sake of anothers is unreal.  How they fit all stuffed within my body is remarkable…

    For all that I stuffed down and away…never left.  They just rode along waiting for me to one day focus on me.

    The day I realized the truth of my life, the fact that my body has kept secure all my emotions, that none slipped by and away, was the day I began to live each day as me.  

    I began to feel…and feel and feel. Emotions washed over me, the terror, the helplessness, the empty trust, the negative feelings I had not looked at all came rushing in.  Thirsty for me to feel.  And I did.

    My days were filled with past emotions and it felt like living on steroids.  Eventually, the dam of emotions fell to a trickle…and I was able to live this day.

    This day as it arrived, this emotion as it came, this moment in time…fully present.

    I have lived without emotions or my feelings and it is a careless way to live. It leaves you caring less about your self.  

    Living days without a self isn't living…it is going through the motions without feelings…it is like living without a body or awareness.  

    Guess it is called unconscious being.

    Trauma woke me up and actually trauma put me asleep…

    I have lived life both ways, and there is no contest; being able to feel and allow each emotion to see the light of day is the only way to live.

    Otherwise you are just breathing, unaware…counting years and allowing days to slip by.

     

  • Inner Level of Truth

    While I thought that we all see life from different angles, I had thought it was from the level of our experience, but it may be more from the level of our awareness. 

    David Hawkins writes a neat example of how we see the world.  

    "Imagine a "bum" on a street corner: In an upscale neighborhood stands an old man in tattered clothes, alone and leaning against the corner of an elegant brownstone. Look at him from the perspective of various levels of consciousness, and note the inconsistency in how he appears to different people and viewpoints.

    "From the bottom of the scale, at a level of 20, (Shame), the bum is seen to be dirty, disgusting, and disgraceful.  

    From the level 30 (Guilt) he'd be blamed for his condition: He deserves what he gets; he's probably a lazy welfare cheat.

    At the level 50 (Hopelessness), his plight would appear desperate, a damning piece of evidence to prove that society can't do anything about homelessness.

    At the level 75 (Grief), the old man looks tragic, friendless, and forlorn.

    At a Conscious level of 100 (Fear), we might see the bum as threatening, a social menace; perhaps we should call the police before he commits some crime.

    At 125 (Desire), he represents a frustrating problem – why doesn't somebody do something.

    At 150 (Anger), the old man might look like he could be violent; or, on the other hand, one could be furious that such horrible conditions exist in our country today.

    At 175 (Pride) he could be seen as an embarrassment or as lacking the self-respect to better  himself.

    At 200 (Courage), we might be motivated to wonder if there is a local homeless shelter – all he needs is a job and a place to live.

    At 250 (Neutrality), the bum looks okay, maybe even interesting.  "Live and let Live," we might say – after all, he's not hurting anyone.

    At 310 (Willingness), we might decide to go down and see what we can do to cheer up that fellow on the corner; maybe we'd be motivated to volunteer some time at the local shelter.

    At 350 (Acceptance), the man on the corner appears intriguing; He probably has an interesting story to tell; he's where he is for reasons we may never understand. 

    At 400 (Reason), he's a symptom of the current economic and social malaise, or perhaps a good subject for in-depth psychological study.

    At the higher levels, the old man begins to look not only interesting, but friendly – and then lovable. Perhaps we'd then be able to see that he was, in fact, one who had transcended social limits and gone free a joyful old guy with the wisdom of age in his face and the serenity that comes from indifference to material things.

    At 600 (Peace) he's revealed as our own self in a temporary expression.

    When approached, the bum's response to these different levels of consciousness would vary with them.  With some, he'd feel secure – with others, frightened or dejected.  Some would make him angry, others would delight him; some he'd avoid, others he'd greet with pleasure.   (And so it's said that we meet what we mirror.)

    So much for the manner in which our level of consciousness – that is, the world we encounter as passive observers – decides what we see. It's true that we'll react to things in a fashion predicated by the level that we perceive them from, that is to say, external events may define conditions, but they don't determine the conscious level of human response.  " David Hawkins

    What I failed to take into consideration, along with the truth, is that we all see what we see depending upon our level of awareness.  It isn't so much that the truth has different shades, but that we do.

    We have darker shades of viewing life and you see how you feel or by your level of being.

    I have learned that who I am to others, way depends on how they see themselves…and really their total understanding not only of self, but life and the Universe too.

    I have felt many differing viewpoints of me…and how I was so wrongly perceived. 

    Just as this bum, I am a lady and they bring their own definition of me to me, and it is colored by their own self awareness.  The lower the level, the worse of a person I become.

    This has freed me to be me…and to make choices based on what I felt was the best for my soul.

    What is also interesting, or at least it bears noting.  It seems that the choices that are good for the soul, are not so good for the pride/ego person.  

    My old choices that helped me thrive in the lower levels are now extremely unappetizing to me now.  It is like you lose the taste for old habits…the magnetism loses its attraction to you

    What is also very cool, is that no one but you can change the level of your consciousness, its energy field is derived by your thought patterns and beliefs.  What you believe…is your level of consciousness.  

    David Hawkins writes about making a leap in awareness.

    "On our scale of consciousness, there are two critical points that allow for major advancement.  The first is at 200, the initial level of empowerment; Here, the willingness to stop blaming and accept responsibility for one's own actions, feelings, and beliefs arises – as long as cause and responsibility are projected outside of oneself, one will remain in the powerless mode of victimhood. The second is at the 500 level, which is reached by accepting love and nonjudgmental forgiveness as a lifestyle, excercising unconditional kindnes to all persons, things and events without exception.  (In 12-step recovery groups, it's said that there are no justified resentments -even if somebody "did you wrong." you're still free to choose your response and let resentment go.)  Once one makes this commitment, he begins to experience a different, more benign world as his perceptions evolve."  David

    Beauty indeed is in the eye of the beholder…You simply can't see that which you are not aware of within you…the less of your self you know and undertand, the less of me you understand and know.

    The more I have learned about me, the broader I view the world…the world is seen from our inner level of truth.

  • Enjoying LIfe together

    Yesterday I spent creating two Mitten Tree Ladies…who are so full of, (as one woman put it,) exuberance.  I love the fabric and the feelings these ladies have.  Their spirits are imbued with self power.

    IMG_7244
    And working with sweater fabric has been a new challenge, but I love the way it adds a new dimension…the feeling of winter.

    IMG_7249
    This Evergreen batik fabric was a challenge, just to see what colors would go with it.  I put down the white and black and greys and whites and was surprised it would go….and the brights flowed too.  I add colors by feeling and never know what will be allowed and what will have to go.

     

    As I was waiting for the above pictures to be downloaded on to this site, I was reading in David Hawkins book, Power vs Force. 

    "Force is limited, whereas power is unlimited.  Through its insistence that the ends justify the means, force sells out freedom, for expediency.  Force offers quick, easy, solutions.  In power, the means and the end are the same, but ends require greater maturity, discipline, and patience to be brought to fruition."

    "Great leaders inspire us to have faith and confidence because of the power of their absolute integrity and alignment with inviolate principles.  Such figures understand that you can't compromise principle and still retain your power."  David Hawkins

    What really caught my eye, is that Force Sells out Freedom…and it will justity any means to get what it wants.

    Acting out in this moment of time, to ensure a peaceful end…really?

    Is not your life created by each step in time?  

    It is insane to think that all the steps of force will in the end deliver a relationship of empowerment.  You can't steal power and have a strong individual left standing.

    I have seen families in the FALC, and even those who have left the church behind, but not the force driven relationships, force their children…by not letting them have their freedom.  

    It has shown me how it was so imperative that I give my children the power to make their own choices.  That is freedom.  Letting them decide…especially when it went against my values or viewpoints…or basically against me. That was when it mattered most.  And I let them.  I not only let them, but had to do so willingly in complete agreement, that yes, they are allowed to go against me.  In fact, if they feel so drawn to, they must…they have to follow their own inner feelings, NoT Mine.

    My earlier mothering instincts were to force them to do as I did…yet after I gave my self the power to walk differently than my parents, it would have been hypocritical to not let them do the same.  And they did.

    It takes great discipline and patience to watch your children grow into their own maturity and lives…but what freedom and joy to allow them them to be free thinkers and free movers, to not be attached at the hip of me….doing and saying and being…Like puppets on my string.

    I truly believed in my own freedom and my authentic power…and that belief powered and gave me strength to give the same to my children. 

    It really does take great patience and discipline to stay in the mode of freedom of choice and empowerment…allowing them to be free, for you can't know if they will freely chose to be with you.

    "If you love someone, set them free….If they come back to you their yours…"  You will then have two free spirits enjoying life together.

     

  • Less abusive to live a lie.

    "We call it 'verbal abuse' when someone tells us the truth about ourselves and we don't want to hear it."  Byron Katie

     

    The above sentence stayed with me and it occurred to me that we have been taught or led to believe that by telling the truth about someone is abusive.

     

    I know that I have become an outcast due to the fact that I speak the truth, about my family.  I state what is and this is seen as abusive, that it is much better to give a false identification of someone, to not share how they hurt you.

     

    Imagine, we are seen as being 'verbally abusive' for 'Telling'.  It is no wonder why children do not speak up, for we feel it will hurt them to hear the truth.

     

    Isn't it interesting that we protect the ones who hurt us.

    The question is why. Why is it so hard to state the facts, to draw the tough lines when abuse is clearly apparent?

    As Dr. Phil says, there has to be a payoff.  What do we get for our silence?  A father and a mother?

    It is unnatural for a child to estrange themselves from their parents, but what they fail to see is that it is natural to move away from abuse.

    That we were born into an unnatural environment, where the parents abused their offspring, they did not 'raise' them, but lowered and changed who they were.

    In society, it is pressed upon us that we are to love and honor thy parent, that family is sacred.  That is, for the normal functional homes.

    And what is the creed for the unnatural families? What is the rule we are to live by?  How do we unhinge ourselves from the parents that abused us…

    I had mistakenly felt that all would abandon my father…and instead they abandoned the truth.

    They abandoned the truth so as to not be abusive towards their parent, while they are now having to live a lie.

    It is remarkable to me now, that it is literally easier to live a lie than to live the truth.

    And it is abusive to our bodies and our lives to live this lie, but we do it to keep a parental relationship alive.  And the truth of this relationship we dare not speak of….So, we have a silent clause, a do not speak of 'the abuse' clause and if you do so you will contine to be part of this family and/or organization.

     

    We would rather abuse ourselves by living a lie, than to 'abuse' our parent by telling the truth and moving away from abuse. We somehow believe that it is 'less' abusive to live a lie.

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Freedom

    Martha Beck writes in Leaving the Saints,

    "My defection from Mormonism changed me in the same way Adam's disability did: it became an open-ended tragedy that I wouldn't give up for anything in the universe. (not even my own planet) because it helps me let go of beliefs that had damaged my soul.  An erswhile friend of mine in the Oak Hills Forth Ward once said he thought the only prayer we offer spontaneously is "Why am I in pain?"  Knowing that I am considered wicked and perhaps insane by people that I love is so painful that it continually drives me to this prayer, drives me to seek sustenance even more stable and powerful than human acceptance and company.  Please, Please, Please, Please…"

    "When I persist in this prayer, sooner or later (the more I practice the more it becomes "sooner") something wonderful happens.  My status as an untouchable feels so terrible that something deep inside me finally lets go of it, of all identity, of all attempts to prove or please or control anyone.  At that moment, I rediscover the stillness in my own heart of hearts.  Then I feel its connection to the Stillness all around me, the gorgeous, blissful Stillness that holds every heart, every mind, every tree and rock in its infinitely loving embrace."

    "I am here. Always.  I am always right here."

    "And it is, it is, right here, nearer than near: connection, comfort, safety, belonging.  Home.  Lao-Tzu said, "The master can travel all day without ever leaving home," and while I'm no master, I have returned home frequently enough to know he was right.  I'm starting to believe that my homing instincts will guide me back anytime I consult it, from anywhere in creation.  I think that may be the reason for this whole terrifying excruciating mortal existence, to wander away from home, then find your way back, so many times we learn from our toes up that no matter how far afield we may stray, we can always, always, always get there from here."

    Martha and I both found that outside of the family and church community there lies a new home.  One that resides inside of us…without that I know I would have certainly died.

    She writes about her new path…"I was teaching career development, helping students create successful lives. But to me, that didn't neccessarily mean huge salaries and a Donald Trump social profile.  It meant learning to go home and stay there, in that place where joy is not dependent on wealth or image, and even the deepest sorrow is a guide toward healing and happiness.  During my years in Utah, through all those days of spiritual trial and effort, all those nights of psychological struggle, I'd developed a repertoire of techniques that helped me do this.  In Phoenix, I began teaching these techniques to my students."

    "You'll know when you're in the wrong job interview," I'd say during a lecture, "because the pit of your stomach will tell you to get out. Your first priority should be stillness, attention to what you really know and what your really feel.  Don't 'network' into meaningless relationshiops with colleagues who bore you; find the people who can make you laugh all night, turn on the lights of your heart and mind. Do whatever work feeds your true self, even if it's not a safe bet, even if it looks like a crazy risk, even if everyone in your life tells you you're wrong or bad or crazy."

    "What I was really tellng them was how to be a Leaf in the Stream, though of course I never  called it that.  Nor did I quote Jesus' question, "What profiteth it a man if he should gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"  I rarely used Buddhist terms like awakening or right action. But all these concepts, all the things I'd learned in my search for God, drove every piece of advice I gave my students."

    "I also started writing books and articles, on many topics but with only one theme, Dante's theme: the journey through the inferno as the road to heaven.  Paradise lost and found."

    "In my case, the inferno-road led through Provo, Utah, the well-meaning bureaucracy of Mormonism, the community of Saints.  Yours probably passes through some other territory, but we all make the same trip.  We believe without question almost everything we learn as children, stumble into the many potholes and pitfalls that mar any human endeavor, stagger around blindly in pain and outrage, then slowly remember to pay attention, to listen for the Silence, look for the Light, feel for the tenderness that brings both vulnerability to wounds and communion with the force that heals them.  Don't worry about losing your way, I tell my clients.  If you do, pain will remind you to find your path again.  Joy will let you know when you are back on it."

    "I still make the journey every day, which is why I wrote this book. Many people, especially I myself, have asked me repeatedly why I'd do such a thing.  I hate conflict, have an enormous fear of being disbelieved, and remember just enough of the old-fashioned Morman temple ceremony to be paranoid about lethal reprisal from the lunatic fringe of my father's fan base ("and whether they will slay me, I know not…"). But much as I dread the consequences of openness, I know the consequences of secrecy are worse.  I've read research that indicates that people who hide a history of traumatic experience live shorter lives, less healthy, less happy lives than those who tell their stories. I know, at a much deeper level, what keeping secrets did to me, and even more to my father. He did more than die for is religion; he gave it his life.  He almost gave it mine.  The memory of that is awful it leads me down Dante's road many times every day and each time, the awfulness makes me keep going, all the way through hell and back to paradise."

    "Once I am home again, I know that my father's true self is not the same man who lied and covered up and sacrificed his children's happiness for his religion…"

    "Even if I never know the explanation behind what happened to me as a child, I do know this for sure; Whether my father had the freedom to choose his thoughts and actions, I do.  I am free, and always have been; free to accept my own reality, free to trust my perceptions,free to believe what makes me feel sane even if others call me crazy, free to disagree even if it means great loss,free to seek the way home until I find it."

    "All the great religions I have studied, including Mormonism, hold that this irrevocable soul-deep liberty is the key to the end of suffering and the beginning of joy.  The Buddha said that just as you can recognize seawater because it will always taste of salt, you can recognize enlightenment because it always tastes of freedom.  About a year after I discovered I'd become a life coach, I stumbled across a Buddhist prayer that felt so true to me it almost stopped my heart.  The last section goes like this:

    "As long as space endures,

    And as long as sentient

    beings exist,

    May I also abide,

    That I may heal my heart

    The miseries of the world."

    "Of course I am not saying I can fulfill the promise of the prayer, only that I want to die trying.  Maybe I already have died trying, once or twice."   Martha

     

    What I recognize most in the similarities between Martha and I, was the cost of speaking out and finding our own inner peace…and how we will repeatedly go back to the fire if we feel we can stop the misery in another, by speaking the truth.  We are willing to die again and again…in order to have freedom.

  • Perfect for Me.

    A thought came to mind yesterday as I wondered about the withholding of truths, that perhaps it is the desire to be perfect that stops us.
    We don't want to say things that are upsetting or we don't want to not go along to cause waves so we refrain from our truths to look better, seem more perfect, nicer even.
    Yet in this 'nicer more perfect' mode, we are not feeling that inside.
    Inside the storms rage, the contradictions swell, and it seems like we are split in two…having to wear 'nice' while feelings and emotions as well as knowledge seem to overwhelm the inside.
    Just like pretending you don't have raging reaction to a bad food, where your stomach is turning, sharp pains, nausea, etc…and you continue to have a calm pleasant face.
    Being truthful is to vomit up all what we hold inside, getting rid of the turmoil that is infesting our insides.  And we want to do this in  pleasant non-hurtful manner, or without causing grief…which is impossible.
    The reasons and sources of our angst usually aren't  wonderful experiences, but rather trauma.  Speaking up about trauma will not sound or feel like chatting about the purchase of a new car.  It will hold pieces and shards of pain, hurt, betrayal, fear, anxiety, shock and horror.  It will reduce you to a shaking quacking hurt soul, and you have to explain how you feel.
    We unveil our wounded soul. 
    The same one we had to cover up in order to survive, we now take the chance  of dying in order to speak of it.
    And there is a dying of sorts.  The death of the survival person, the one who lived pretending the abuse didn't happen.  This survival person is who people liked, who got along, who was 'nicer' and 'kinder'….and we are afraid that the truthful person will be annihilated.
    In my case it happened.  My survival self (the pretending trauma didn't live in my body) was accepted and my truthful self rejected.
    Being rejected for being my truthful self felt like being abused a second time around, but this time aware and fully present…And this time, I didn't have the the body's natural survival mode of "Disassociation"….I wanted to feel this, to accept this, to acknowledge this, to honor this IN order to now live in reality.
    I wasn't willing to revert back to my childhood ways of living a life inside that was totally different from my presentation to the world.  
    This time, what I feel inside matches the features on my face or my actions and often times, non-actions.
    I no longer care if I am perfect for you, I am always perfect for me.
    " The First Casualty of Dysfunction is truth" Carl Huhta

  • Living on the Blocks.

    Week 9, The Artist Way…Julia Cameron writes,

    “We’re more comfortable being a victim of artist’s block than risking having to consistently be productive and healthy.

    “An artistic U-Turn arrives on a sudden wave of indifference. We greet our newly minted product or our delightful process with “Aw, what does it matter anyhow?  It’s just a start.  Everybody else is so much further ahead…”

    “Yes, and they will stay that way if we stop working. The point is we have traveled light-years from where we were when we were blocked. We are now on the road, and the road is scary.  We begin to be distracted by roadside attractions or detoured by the bumps.”

    And here are a few sentences from the exercises at the end of the chapter.

    “Your choice to block is a creative U-Turn – we turn back on ourselves.  Like water forced to stand still, we turn stagnant.”   Julia

    These blocks are in Life and in Art. And we use them as an excuse as to why we can’t live a better life or create art. 

    And it is only ourselves that turn us around and heads us back to our old vices and excuses or fears.  We keep turning our backs on our truths, our desires, what we love, what brings us peace, our joy…in the good energy flow. 

    I see my life as a river where others lives are rocks cropping up or interests that are not crucial to my pathway, and instead of floating on by, I stop.  I stop my own flow in life.

    We each have specific rocks that stop us and then there are bends in the river, opportunities that float by, but we are too afraid to slip into the flow…or we are so busy doing things that are not important and they go by unnoticed. 

    It is just so interesting that Artist Blocks or Blocks of Addictions keep us from creativity…and they are all our choices.

    It is up to us to stop clinging to things that don’t serve us, that keeps us from living. 

    One big boulder in my life is ‘Responsibility’ and getting my work done first. 

    I focus on cleaning up my space instead of using that time to create.  I put so many rocks ahead of my flow, that my life seems heavy and hard. 

    I never looked at it this way…even though I lived it more often than not.  In fact slipping into the flow of life and playing in the currents and relaxing and letting the river take me, without saying no…is not very common in my life. 

    Most of my life has been spent on heavy rocks and in other people’s responsibility.  Getting used to flowing in my life will take some effort and will mean turning my back on ‘work’.  Who knew that work is a blockage in your life.

    Today, my one day off, and again I am working on cleaning up our house, the sewing machine sits…however, I did make a date with my husband for later on.

    In time, I will be able to discern how much free flowing time I have had and how much I have spent on the rocks, for I will feel its heaviness and know I got lost again living on the blocks.

    "Saying No can be the ultimate self-care."  Claudia Black

     

     

  • Growing Lifeless.

    It seems that there is a side of change that continues to catch me off guard, while I eagerly lean towards growth and transformation, I fail to see I am outgrowing friends.

     

    My flippant quote that I clung to was, “Birds of a feather flock together…”  I just failed to appreciate that in changing the colors of my feathers, I would no longer feel drawn to being with certain people and then have to seek new feathers that matched the new me.

     

    There should be a warning label on all the self-realization books, that by becoming more aware, more truthful, more in alignment with your soul’s purpose, you may lose friends if they are not on the same journey.

     

    You arrive to the same group or have lunch with an old friend only to find you don’t sway to the same tune, that your music is no longer in sync…you both feel it and perhaps try and not notice, but eventually the ‘meetings’ become less and less attractive.

     

    We are attracted to similar energies and if our energies rise and theirs remain the same, the growing apart naturally takes place, you don’t have to orchestrate it, facilitate it, you just have to honor it.

     

    What I have failed to consider each time I get a great hit of new insights and understandings, when I burst forth in a new way, that I leave behind my old energy patterns which match my friends.

     

    I also believe that many are stopped on the journey towards living a full spiritual soulful life, is that it may mean leaving behind relationships of long standing.

     

    What I also have great confidence in is that many friendships are like a curvy path; we meet and go away only to meet again, for we are all heading in the same direction, but at our own pace.

     

    So I don’t see the leaving as in forever, but that our journeys are set at a different speed.

     

    What I need most is to pay attention to what I need, what excites me and makes me come alive…it serves no one to sit and idle growing lifeless.

     

  • 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!