No Soliciting, No Proselytizing

A couple from a religious organization repeatedly knock at the door.

An elderly woman inside cowers in fear, hiding in her closet; shaking, tears in her eyes and down her cheeks, wishing they would just go away.

I can’t get this real life scenario out of my head. Nor can I ignore the lessons glaring at me because of it:

#1. Learn how to have a backbone and say “no” when it’s in your best interest.

#2. Stop trying to people please. There’s a difference between being kind, being kind to oneself and being kind to others. Be kind, but don’t sacrifice YOUr integrity, finances, body, heart or anything else that takes away from your own spirit, or depletes at your own expense or makes you fall behind to lift another.

#3. You don’t have to do anything that doesn’t fill you with joy and happiness. Walk away. Or go to the closet and stay until it’s safe to come out.

#4. People often try forcing their views and "good" intentions upon others. Don’t be like them.

#5. Only really open your door if you want to open your door to the outside world. And be cautious about who you let in.

#6. Listen to your inner voice. And don’t just listen… Follow.

#7. Too many times there is simply nothing that can be done. People you love are sometimes too far away to reach, whether physically or emotionally. Send love. It might not be felt or received, but it creates a bridge that keeps a connect when things out of our control cause a sense of loss or grief or disappointment. No matter what, love.

#8. Feel sorry for others, hurt for others, but it isn’t your job to fix them or to try to change their minds or bend their wills to match your own.

#9. Stand firm in who you are. Don’t be afraid to know who YOU are, to represent who you are every single day. Peer pressure is for cowards (both sides), unafraid to think for themselves and too afraid to venture out into unknown places or open their minds to explore the limitless “what if’s”.

#10. Free your mind from attachments to fear. The worst that could ever happen? In any scenario, the worst has happened somewhere, to someone and they’ve either survived or not. Chains are usually invisible. Everything usually is all right in the end. Breathe.

My mom trained me, along with other people and other organizations that it’s the “right” thing to give and give and give. I’m arguing today, that while it’s noble, it can also be so damaging. It’s not “right” to deplete yourself beyond the breaking point, past the point of “empty”. Too hard to repair damage done. I usually preach about having an open heart, being a good person. But today? I’m thinking in order to be the best at anything we choose to be, it’s vital to protect and take care of the most valuable gift given:  You. Care for your temple – your body, your mind, your heart, your soul.

Tendons, Bones, Alzheimer's, Muscles and Emotions

I have watched Alzheimer’s from a close distance, always pretty fearful of my own lot in life since most of the women in my immediate family have had that cross to bear. And over and over I’ve seen that the disease makes everything stifled rise to the surface; all the fears un-faced and unaddressed, all the traumas shoved under the rugs, all the heartbreak and disappointments that were never properly digested. Maybe that’s why I’m on the mental journey I’m on. Maybe that’s why I long for and search for and strive for that place of enlightenment I know others have found. Selfishly, I don’t want my mind and body to end this life still carrying the scar tissue lodged on a cellular level, waiting for a chance to disengage and bubble up.

There are healers I know of who don’t believe the old school of thought “no pain, no gain”. They have learned how to accept things as they are, gently coax, gently guide and redirect and open up and clear problems inside the physical body, such as adhesions in muscle tissue, stuck fascia tissue, edema, etc.  I admire and believe wholeheartedly in their “way”, their methods. And try to embrace that philosophy when I’m most frustrated with myself and most hard on “getting a grip” in my own life.

Muscles, tendons and bones all become reactionary when life hands out some nasty things, whether it’s due to overuse, under use, strains, sprains, pressure, patterns. When the human body cannot stay relaxed, it tightens itself up in self-defense.  It  guards and protects itself from injury. But too many times, it forgets to relax again because it has learned to expect danger,  The body prepares for what might hurt next; it loses the innocent  trust that outside forces aren’t going to cause damage. So “knots” form in the shoulders, between the shoulder blades, the lower back. Then the body learns how to compensate or use an uneven, unbalanced pattern to accommodate the inflamed, angry parts. And one small problem builds upon another and another until eventually permanent damage can be the result. The therapists I admire most have learned how to speak to and address the discomforts by using a more graceful approach.

Emotions. Muscles.  Muscles. Emotions.

I’ve compared the disease of the brain, the reaction of life against human form, and healing ones heart after loss upon loss. All seem to be a maze of twists and turns and actions and reactions. All show what happens when you keep staying in the same patterns of behavior, when you get used to being off balance but things have a way of rising and making themselves heard and known regardless of any “control” one thinks they might have. All have breaking points where nature simply takes its course. And any small thing can trigger a “flare up”; a familiar face that once caused joy but then caused pain, carrying a purse on the wrong side and causing muscles to scream in pain, a song on the radio that churns up love lost or love destroyed, tripping over a stone and causing one leg to remain guarded while protecting the one whose ankle was twisted five years prior, a date on the calendar that reminds us of tragedy… and unfortunately there are those of us who seem to carry the harsh more than the happy events. Perhaps tied in to what seems “normal”.

Life is for the imperfect. The flawed. And none of us make it out unscathed.  So life for me, has become about reaching. Reaching deep inside to find healing. Reaching beyond and out and through and learning all I can from all the things that speak most clearly to my soul.

Emotions. Muscles. Muscles. Emotions….

 

Swinging From Branches and Hanging Onto Me

Several times throughout life I’ve been filled with childlike wonder; an innocence and quiet knowing that what I’m experiencing is beyond beautiful and is as perfect as life can be on Planet Earth. Those times have spoken and shown me heaven while in human form. I’ve been blanketed by magic and pure joy when I saw the Pacific Ocean for the very first time with my grandmother, every time I saw my children get the giggles, when I felt mountains for the first time, when I rode a horse across the desert in Arizona while staying with a woman who couldn’t speak English but who showed me a kind of love that spoke loudly and clearly, when I held my granddaughter for the first time, when I landed in Maui the first time… the second time… the third, when I swam with my Lomi family in holy waters and spent time praying alone at Kukuipuka Heiau.

Unfortunately, and something I’m desperately wrestling with right now, this flawed world has a way of sometimes tarnishing the luster and taking away or chiseling away what once was so precious and sweet. Thieves have a way of stealing into those moments that I somehow wish I could figure out how to cling to forever. And a heavy cloud of doubt or fear or lack of faith tries diminishing and lessening the innocence.

I’m lost. I honestly can’t find my way back into those holy spaces. I guess I have to just trust and know that they are a part of who I am. They haven’t gone anywhere, even though time and circumstance has whittled away at their initial impact on my life. And I come full circle inside my own head, thinking all those things add up, layer upon layer and provide a quiet foundation of truth. And even though the world tries crowding them out or stealing them away, I’m elevated by them. They are my stepping stones; my building blocks.

So when it feels like an earthquake is trying to knock me off my feet or push me off my course or whip me off balance, the remembrances may be all that is needed to keep carrying me forward. I just need to think back on those times and stop and see and feel their light shining from “what was” into “what is”…..  And no matter what happens tomorrow, whether there is pain or whether there is laughter, I can stand in tact and in touch with a childlike heart.

“So was I once myself a swinger of birches.

And so I dream of going back to be.”

― Robert Frost

WhAt DoEs It TaKe To MaKe Me LoSe My InHiBiTiOnS aNd DANCE????

For as long as I can remember, my mom would remind me whenever I felt like I was walking through “the valley”, whenever I hit a low point in life, that a person “can’t just stay on the mountaintop forever. Think how boring life would be.” She would add a touch of light-heartedness and a big heaping of hope to encourage me to just keep walking. Move one foot in front of the other when life throws you a curve ball and you feel you’ve descended from the heights and the beautiful sights.

She would remind me that things simply don’t remain; the valley, the peek, sorrow, joy, boredom… Ever changing, ever flowing and sometimes quickly moving, sometimes slowly moving through life.

I was reminded awhile ago by a very great friend of mine that some of us have a hard time being patient. Waiting. If I find myself inside of a situation I don’t want to be in, I get restless. I push and shove and try to force myself onward and upward. And I forget to stop, take a deep breath, look around me. I’m finding out the lessons are sometimes screaming at me to be seen and heard, but I’m so busy trying to get back up the mountainside, I miss the most important and often the most beautiful parts of the experience.

I was thinking earlier how life has this way of whittling away at us. One thing happens that causes us to react a certain way or to go a certain direction. Then another thing. Another thing. Sometimes all those layers end up stripping us down or crushing us. Making us feel like there is nothing left to do but to completely surrender and simply “be”; maybe for a few minutes, or a day or months or years.

I have felt the pain of that chipping away. And I’ve felt as the last little pieces have unstuck themselves from my core being. And in the place of all the disappointments, all the struggles, the terrors and the pain, my inhibitions and the things that served as barriers against a world I don’t understand suddenly, momentarily disappear. And I know what it is to dance in a way that takes me back up the slope and into higher ground.

My Maui sisters recognize the process as “ebb and flow”. The coming in and going out of the tide. It can be breathtakingly beautiful, even though the movement might temporarily cause discomfort.

Losing inhibitions.

Dancing….

“Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free.”

― Rumi

Of What We're Made

I’ve been “thinking” in circles and squares and all kinds of random shapes since I first remember being able to remember. And once again, the Queen of Abstracts and Absolutes finds out what she thought she knew, she doesn’t know at all.

I’ve been on a quest for the past several years of learning what it takes to “let go”. To subtract those things that don’t make me better or leave me in a higher place. I’ve learned to dismiss, diminish, take away, step back, stop trying so hard, simply allow, go with the flow, reduce, remove. And I stand by the realization that all of the changes and re-arranges have shifted me, made me better, brought me more spirituality, more grace, more understanding and more joy. But I just had a “eureka moment” that can’t be ignored.

Until my life is over, I don’t think there are certain situations and circumstances of which  I will ever be able to completely let go. There are losses we face and are forced into bearing. There are tragedies that rob us, morph us. There are heartbreaks that we never fully recover from. All things I’ve tried over and over to rise above. All things I’ve peeled apart, layer by painful layer in an attempt to reach total healing. And it just now occurs to me that maybe we’re not designed to let it all go. Rather maybe we’re designed to process, digest, take it IN – not push against it or attempt to eradicate. Maybe it simply becomes part of who we are, becomes our make-up and part of our grander design. And maybe finally, in the surrendering, truly surrendering, I’ll discover maybe, just maybe, I’ve let go more than I think I have… and if not, maybe I’ve let go “enough”.

The things that happen TO us all, aren’t who we have ever been, aren’t who we potentially can be. I hope I’m learning how to place those things gently somewhere within where they work best so that I can be connected to the me I know I can be. And I hope I allow myself more breathing room and more elbow room.

3D Glasses

Sometimes I forget that I’m a three dimensional shape and that I won’t always get to be…

A three dimensional shape.

We all call it dying, but really I think we’re just shifting and evolving and changing and by the time we breathe our last breath of earth air, we let go of this experience, this body on loan from elements and minerals and earthly and other-worldly materials and move into the fourth dimension, fifth, sixth, seventh, millionth or wherever our next adventure lies.

I hope I never take for granted the form I’m in, the forms around me, the parts that I will never even get the chance to encounter because I’m so limited in 3D.

Here for such a short time. Inside this shell we take for granted.

May I recognize the dance I’m supposed to dance.

May I recognize the song I’m supposed to sing.

May I recognize the dreams I’m supposed to dream.

May I recognize the life I’m supposed to live.

Three dimensional nose that smells the pleasant and unpleasant.

Three dimensional eyeballs that fit into sockets that allow me to see in my own unique individualized colors and shapes.

Three dimensional fingers that let me feel the things that we call “tangibles”.

Three dimensional heart that beats and pumps and rhythmically and unrhythmically keeps me without sharp edges and hard corners so that I can fluidly move through the pounding of this thing we call “life”.

Shape. Form. Substance. Always changing, moving towards being without

this

that happens in

3D.

On Becoming More Bitchy

My mom told me over and over when I was young, “Be nice. Nice girls always get the guy.” Or “nice girls always come out ahead.” Or “nice girls always win in the end.”

I love that my mom taught me about how to be nice. Her actions more than her words became my road map. And she has always been one of the sweetest women I know. But often times while watching her be “kind”, I pushed down an overwhelming feeling of MAD. Because I watched as she worried about others so much, she lost parts of herself that I’m not sure she ever regained. While making others (including me) happy, she sacrificed her own self and life and health. A horrific price to pay. Pushing herself beyond her own limits so that others’ lives could be more comfortable. I learned from the master teacher.

But lately, I’ve been questioning “nice”.  Or my own interpretation of what that is.

Questioning it alot.

Not saying I think we should all throw kindness out the door. Far from it. But how about if we’re nice to ourselves enough to keep ourselves intact? To make our lives a bit easier?

For the first time in my life I’m finding out the efficiency of placing boundaries quickly and quietly around my inner being. It's hard for me to do. I have to work hard at it.

At work, I've had to learn how to apply these new principles better. Be more precise. Be more decisive. Be more clear. It saves time. It manages other’s lives better. It makes the well-oiled machine run much more economically. It helps MY life feel easier. I’ve struggled with it, because in demonstrating THOSE qualities, I have felt I’m sacrificing “nice”. Today the light bulb went on as I was gently taught that my concept and interpretation is a bit askew.

I also figured out today that this world isn’t always nice. (duh) Very few individuals I know of are completely selfless. Most of us are incredibly selfish, putting our own wants before anyone else. Not that that is good or bad. I’m convinced it’s simply being human. We all expect life and the universe to swirl around our importance and when it doesn’t we get all bent out of shape and wonder why and feel we’ve failed or something. (a different topic altogether) So I’ve entered into the challenge to begin using my built in Bullshit Radar - on myself and on others. What can I do to not only protect my energy but also “your” energy? Keeping us out of circumstances or moments that are unnecessary or unimportant or just really not needed? Going back to that feeling of creating more empty space around me. I’m finding out there’s a way to make vastness around my reactions or lack of reactions and in my constant need to people please.  Whittle down. Take away. Remove. And in so doing, I become aware that there truly are those who take advantage. (insert huge audible, collective gasp) Some people try to get away with as much as possible simply because they can, probably without even understanding what they are doing.

Just say no. Be blunt and to the point. 

Especially if you’re in a place where you feel you need to start protecting your own value and worth. I’m giving myself permission to pull back on the nice-ness.

Look out world. And um, sorry mom.

lol

Dancing With Life

I had an amazing conversation last night with someone I’ve known “on the surface”, someone who has died twice, gone through incredible life journeys, has had to climb back and rise from the rubble more than once; someone who is worlds away from where they first started as a child. The stories inspired me and feel like they’ve changed me somehow for the better. I heard about tragedy that led to a place of learning how to embrace and live in each moment as it comes, trials and traumas that led to a place where dancing, absorbing music and just shining an inner light for others has ignited a willingness to open one’s life to complete service to others. Through “me”, use me to change a world one little piece at a time is the lesson I gained from simply listening.

It’s a call I feel my mom instilled in me forever ago. A call to take the ashes or the shitty parts and pieces and raise those things up with love and life as the driving forces, the forces that know innately that everything, every little thing can be used for the good, for betterment of self and others.

I don’t know, nor will I ever really figure it all out, I don’t know if we are all here on planet Earth for a reason. I have my gut feeling we are. But I also have my doubts that maybe life is nothing but randomness and chaos. But the stories that weave themselves in and out of my life ignite my bones. They wrap around and tie things together and make sense out of nonsense and guide me to a feeling of wanting to sing and share smiles and laughter and ease other people’s pain. Those wishes become the fabric of life and take me away from an even-keeled center where there is little to feel, shallow waters;  where there is no depth into this expansive full spectrum ocean of experience. It all keeps taking me further into the highest highs and lowest lows and I emerge feeling baptized over and over by some kind of grace that is stretching me beyond comfort and ease and into a new dimension of absorbing life in ways I never dreamed I could or would.

The more I love myself, the more I love this life, the more I love others around me who have similar paths and ideas and dreams to express, the more expansive everything becomes. I might not have a lot of money, I might not have a mansion on a hill complete with swimming pool and servants… but I have stories and the hearts of friends that make me feel incredibly rich. Thank you life. Every day.

A Gypsy's Creed

Again today I will rise.

I’ll get up and brush off all the remnants of yesterday, leave it behind in the dust of the day gone forever.

Today I lift myself up again, to a new place and into a new direction.

The path of the gypsy, ever changing, always flowing, learning slowly and sometimes quickly how to let go and unchain from what tries pulling you back, tries dampening your spirit and inner light, the things from the outside that work toward taking away what’s deep on the inside. But that part of me remains. It will never be diminished or destroyed or taken away.

I know me. I know my light. I know my strength. I know who I’ve been called to be.

I know when I rise, all around me does the same, even though sometimes the pain of acceleration can shake up and break up, make me stumble, make me wallow for awhile in self-doubt and self-pity and self-centeredness that makes me temporarily lose sight of the bigger picture.

Today I rise again. And again if I have to. Constantly remembering we’re all being challenged to do more, be more, evolve more.

So it is in rising that I embrace those things that have come, that will come that trip me up. I appreciate the gifts hidden inside the experiences and I will rely on powers that flow through me, that surround me, that are present even as far as galaxies away; the powers that can, do and will turn everything… EVERY LITTLE THING… into something better for everyone, not just for me. It isn’t my power to own, yet it is. It isn’t my power to direct. Yet it is. All I have to do is remember. All I have to do is reach out and grab onto, hold loosely and trust.

Today I will rise, whether or not I feel myself moving. I call my old self out from beneath any shadows and invite my real self to enter into the path of light. That simple.

Today I rise again and dance myself, paint myself, write myself, sing myself into my higher purpose, which is your higher purpose, too.

Today… you rise again too.

Dwelling Inside the Good

Sometimes I think the breaking point in my marriage was the day the basement flooded.

I had spent most of my adult life trying to be “the good mom, the perfect wife”. I spent hours and hours creating scrapbooks and photo albums, collecting memories that I thought would be so important to document for my kids and future grandchildren. I had made the choice to be a stay-at-home mom and I poured my heart and my love into being the best I knew how to be. Hours of building a home from scratch, days and months and years of collecting just the right bits and pieces to make their home great, to make their keepsakes memorable and artistic. I spent so much of myself I often wonder if I lost me in the process of trying to be perfect.

I beat myself up for awhile. I should have placed those precious picture books high on a shelf or in some special trunk or container that would keep them safe. But instead, they were stacked on the floor, on new carpet in a room I cherished as a safe haven where I made my creations or spent time alone in prayer or healing of self. There on the floor, my sons’ scrapbooks sat in water that seeped through the floor and walls and flooded the rooms that had taken my ex-husband and I so long to design, create and build.

Something completely broke inside me that day. I came home to the emotions of those who were already frantically trying to bail the water out, to salvage what could be salvaged. All I could see, all I could think about were those books. And what it meant to lose not only the images saved, but the energy and love I had spent on something that could be taken away in such a short amount of time - as short as a thunder storm/torrential rain.

I’m thinking now about how disasters can rob you of your identity. They can steal away a lifetime of hard, honest work. They can erase within moments all the moments that you spent being who you are. Within seconds, so much can be erased and never again replaced or retrieved or found.

It’s at those times, through all the shattered chards and all the broken bits and pieces that we start creating a new mosaic. At times when a person thinks there is no possible way to move forward, they find out movement is inevitable. It is at those pivotal junctures where you discover there’s really no control to be had, only a sense of weightlessness and surrender, a floating into the arms of whatever this life is about. There is simply a will to go on so you begin by sifting through, dusting off, shaking away and allowing life to take you wherever.

I don’t doubt any more that there is mercy and grace buried inside of trials, buried inside of tragedy. And there is an energetic, live and tangible peace there, too. And sometimes we have to be rattled to the core, removed from all we’ve ever been and known in order to finally reconnect and feel it in our souls. Maybe minutes after or maybe years. But it’s there for us to unlock and uncover.

Today I caught myself wondering where I’d be if that basement would have held up and kept the water out. I know I wouldn’t be the one I am today. I wouldn’t have the same experiences or the same encounters.

I am pretty certain there is a huge advantage to seeking out the good even through all the bad. Focusing on the positive changes everything. It doesn’t take away the hurt or the negative or the pain of what happened unjustly or unfairly, but it empowers life to turn things around for the better, it opens up the flood gates of goodness.

“Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”

Find Joy

Several years ago, after struggling most of her life to get there, my mom was healthier than she had ever been, had lost a lot of weight, was married to her best friend, had her dream job and finally had reached a place of life where she had less pain than she had known for years. I remember seeing her during one of her visits to Iowa and feeling so proud of her accomplishments. She was stunning (still is).

Shortly thereafter, she had a stroke. And although it didn’t affect her nearly as badly as it could and should have, it altered her. I’ve been thinking about how it seemed to have robbed her of the state of joy and “perfection” that she had finally reached. I’ve been thinking how life is like that too often for many of us. This roller coaster ride that we have no control over, finding ourselves throwing our hands in the air, screaming as loudly as we can and just flying with our eyes wide open. A lot of times there isn’t anything left to do except to just buckle in and ride the ride.

I’ve admired how, through it all, through the good and through the tough, she has carried one theme within her – to live life joyfully, to find happiness in each and every moment. Even in her tears and the times I’ve heard her cry on the other end of the phone, it always changes to laughter, often times giggling without reservation like a little child.

Some of us spend most of our lives seeking out, searching for relief from pain whether it’s mental, emotional, physical, spiritual; however defined. We get caught up in thinking that life has been unjust. We dwell inside of what doesn’t make sense. We wallow in the shallow. Fall down and focus on the sharp edges, the scar tissue, the HURT. I’ve learned through my mother that if you dive deeper, love harder, risk more, breathe bigger breaths and laugh deeper laughs there is a place you reach when you find the “peak”. A place where peace is truly the kind that passes all understanding and you know that whatever is around life’s bend will somehow manage to take care of you, hold you, guide you, raise you and place you right where you need to be. Even the crummy things, like strokes and broken hands and broken hearts make you better and in a sense make you more capable of being happier and more content with the little things that truly are what make life valuable.

Throw your hands up in the air. Let go. And feel life whirling around you, through you. Find joy.

Crossing Over the Breaking Point

I’ll never know why life throws curve balls that sometimes knock you flat. Situations out of your control that make you bend beyond any bending ever managed prior. I don’t even think I have the ability to TRY to understand anymore.

But I’ve discovered there’s a sacred place beyond the breaking point, the point where there’s a choice to either find yourself shattered or contorted, twisted, still intact but bent beyond recognition. There’s a fine line where you cross over into infinity, into a field of open ended possibilities and options. And it’s simply a matter of figuring out it’s a choice, even when there seems to be a tornado of events swirling around. One small shift in your brain where in the face of “fight or flight” you find a calming peace and strength that isn’t your own but IS your own all in the same instant. And you make peace with everyone and everything.

A person can open eyes and see that you can walk the path of victim, victim of a disease, victim of physical pain, victim of a broken heart… or you can walk the path of seeking joy, no matter what happens around you. Sometimes it’s difficult to remember the power of laughter, the incredible strength of a smile, but it appears as if magically, unrehearsed and unplanned after the temporary tragedies.

We have a mystical, magical ability to find light in the middle of dark, happy inside of sorrow, courage inside of fear. We find it within. We find it within each other. A quiet, subtle “homing device” that brings us to a better place.

I’m meeting up with an old friend from college today after spending the evening with incredible friends, music and laughter. And it might not seem like much, but it’s enough to alter a life. It’s the way God has whispered reassurances. It’s the way I’m reminded that sometimes you have to just completely let go and trust good things will always, always find you.

April Fool's Day

April Fool
Do you ever wake up realizing you’ve been making choices and decisions from a place of fear and pain rather than from a place of love? Ironically on April 1st, I woke up today with that understanding about my own self. I’m amazed at how the human brain uses sleep time, night time, to sort and file and “clean house” and re-think in order to solve issues and bring about clarity and organization to a mess of jumbled up, chaotic thoughts.
April Fool’s Day Eureka Moment
There’s a hidden art some of us perfect without even knowing we’ve mastered it; self-sabotage. I woke up with eyes wide open after my son asked me yesterday after telling him about some parts of my life, “Mom. If I were here telling you what you’re telling me, what advice would you give to me?” The question stopped me in my tracks and I immediately knew how I would respond to my own child. I had never even considered treating myself with the same support and love, the same as a mother looking in from the outside. I went to sleep, thinking about the wisdom he offered. The minute my eyes opened (literally and figuratively) I saw how time after time I’ve climbed my way through the self-sabotage ranks. Those two little words were standing in front of my brain waves as clearly as a physical object in the room: SELF SABOTAGE.
“Self-sabotage” is defined several ways, but this one speaks loudly – “Self-sabotaging behavior results from the same cause, a misguided attempt to rescue ourselves.”
An attempt to rescue ourselves from suffering the unpleasant realizations life always circulates that causes our own mind to spin and whirl and tangle itself up inside of “what ifs” and “buts” and “why?s”. While trying to save me, I hurt me. I lose me.
The biggest self-defense mechanism of all.
I’ve thought all along that I was really good at embracing “success”, reaching for goals, taking steps that will bring good into life. But this morning I suddenly saw an invisible dance I’ve been doing that tells my inner child, “You’re not good enough. You’re not worth it. You don’t deserve….” I saw how I’ve chosen to subtly “punish” myself for allowing bad things to happen, for allowing my own self to be so vulnerable at times that others have entered and caused damage, punish myself for things that are most often completely out of my control but that I’ve internalized into “it’s all my fault”, "if I were perfect" "if I tried harder" "if I were only better".
Over and over my mother has told me that the one and only reason we are here on this earth is to be happy, to seek out joy. That should be an easy road map, but there are a few of us out here that manage to knock ourselves off course because those qualities end up making us feel good about ourselves, and we view ourselves as being too small to earn “the good life”.
I hope today I can trust “awareness is key”. I hope I can start changing what I’ve never before been able to see. Time to go kick life’s ass and follow the “path of greatest ease” which was the challenge placed before me the last time I spent time in Maui with wonderful healers of hearts.
"Live long and prosper"……
Love yourself.

The Older I Get

The older I get the more I believe in the concept of being responsible for what you send out into the world. “What goes around, comes around.” My mom is one of those types of individuals that doesn’t have a bad bone in her body. It’s always been beyond her to ever think the worst of people, to ever intentionally wrong someone or belittle or hurl a heap of her own hurt towards someone else. Qualities I hope I’ve inherited because in my eyes, that makes her one of the most amazingly beautiful women I know.

The older I get the more I realize that whatever I project outward or carelessly blurt without having loving intentions DOES and WILL come back to me. Or perhaps, I plant a seed that continues to grow and gain momentum. Insecurity creeps in, insecurity spews out, but doesn’t just dissolve into thin air. It intensifies, feeds on itself, grows and becomes bigger than ever. Self doubt builds inside and spills over and instead of a small bump in the road becomes my personal mountain to climb. And in the process of sending the negatives out, I end up hurting others. And the ripple effect has been unleashed.

The older I get the more I realize there’s this fine line of speaking your voice, releasing your feelings so another knows what you’re going through and holding your tongue until you’ve surrounded those feelings with enough love that the words you share aren’t reflecting your own bitterness, your own hurt, your own sorrow, pain or confusion. This is a process I haven’t yet mastered but one I’m examining right now. I wish I could more easily be just like my mom, because through her I’ve never known any other thing but being blanketed by love that makes everything easier to handle.

The older I get the more I realize how much we affect one another. Quietly sometimes. Uproariously other times. I see our impact, over and over. It’s amazing to me to think that we have this enormous power over one another, power to lift or power to smash apart, power to uphold or power to weaken, power to honor or power to disgrace, power to add grace or power to deplete. The older I get the more I try to rise above it all, but I fail miserably at that, too.

The older I get the more I simply see that truly there is some sort of karmic value to the energy we choose or choose not to expend and project from our deepest DNA, from our souls and hearts. It makes sense more and more that we need to tend to our own bodies, heal our own inner workings, mend our own hearts so that we are better equipped to make this world better by us being here. Projecting good karma from a cellular level opens up empty spaces and places that pull the same kind of good karma in, always filling, always nourishing. Today I am choosing to focus on the energy I’m holding for myself, for others. Am I adding to or taking away? Building or destroying? Loving or hating? What am I sending out, what keeps coming back in?

The older I get, the more I see it in action, the more I feel it moving through me and the more aware I am when I’m doing it all wrong; “what goes around, comes around, what comes around, goes around……”

Reflection

(Rhonda’s words:)

She kept wondering…

“Why can’t he see it.”

Maybe it isn’t there or

Maybe it’s all her.

And then he told her about watching the little girl.  Her intention to feed some ducks.  Good intention.  Warm and generous heart.  But she chose an unconventional approach keeping the bread intact and rather than using crumbs, used whole slices.  Maybe she had a disability that kept her mind from thinking of another way.  Maybe she was lazy.  Maybe no one had shown her a way where the ducks would be more responsive.  Maybe she was doing exactly what her mother had told her to do.  But he wanted to go show her the right way to feed the birds.  He saw her foolishness.  Wanted to change her, fix her and make her understand what she was doing was wrong or inefficient.  He didn’t want to accept that the little girl just wanted to feed the ducks in her own way.  Her own pace.  With her own insightfulness.

The story made her realize something they both choose not to see.  A need to control life outside and  within.  A need to want to dive in and alter what simply is.  Change something for the “better” or “best”.  Yet neither realizing the best is in the moment, happening just the way it is.

She had to eat.  Had to nourish her body.  While her soul was screaming for something, too.

And at the table while eating vegetables… she read the following from a book, “Healing Through the Akashic Records:  Using the Power of Your Sacred Wounds to Discover Your Soul’s Perfection” by Linda Howe.  And it all came together.  She saw it more clearly.  Identified with words what has kept eluding her. She connected her own need to eat vegatables with her need to feed the ducks, the way she knew to feed the ducks.

(Linda’s words, words that could have been Rhonda’s:)

“My father’s death was a slow and terribly painful one.  Perhaps you, too, have been helpless in the face of a loved one’s suffering.  The compassionate space of the Records gave me relief from the sadness and angst I experienced during that trying time, and this in itself was a tremendous healing gift.

But I remained troubled.  I felt tied in knots about how my siblings should respond:  both to my father’s care and to handling the emotionally wrenching situations themselves.  (There were knots tied within knots tied within knots – I am the second child of eight!)  I was certain I knew what each of my brothers and sisters should do, and I felt strongly compelled to manage and direct their actions.  As you might imagine, my direction was not always welcome.

The Records revealed a different approach.  They led me to an understanding that all of my brothers and sisters were entitled to their own experiences of our father’s death.  They showed me that not only was it inappropriate for me to guide, urge, or try to inspire my siblings – for I truly did not know what was best for them – it was also unnecessary.  I came to understand that each of us had a unique relationship with our father and that it was insulting and demeaning of me to force my perceptions on another. This was not an easy realization to come to:  none of us wants to discover that our behavior has been insulting or demeaning….

…I came to know and trust that everyone could take care of him or herself. ..

…This invaluable discovery – that each one of my siblings had his or her own rightful pathway through our father’s death – is one (lesson) I cannot now unlearn.”

And a few pages later, Linda writes:

“I know how hard it is to live with hurt feelings and the scar tissue that has built up around them.  I know how difficult it is to be held hostage to old patterns of interacting with others.  I know how demoralizing it is to keep trying to change but to fail again and again.  And I know what it is like to use your shortcomings against yourself.  It is because I have suffered these experiences, too, and have been relieved of them, that I am sharing this method with you.  Believe me; your efforts will bring tremendous liberation.”

(Rhonda’s voice:)

The challenge for her becomes what Linda suggests is the first step;  "don’t judge, fear not….  resist not.” 

All things she’s heard him say in a different kind of way.

Can she see in her what she sees in him?

Can he see in him what he sees in her?

Knowing Myself Inside My Guitar

I’m trying really hard to stop focusing on what and who has been lost over my lifetime, who is currently slipping away. (including loss of self on too many occasions to count) I keep reminding myself to focus on the gifts that come in; every day, ALL day. I’ve been waking up thanking the stars, the sky, the earth, God, the universes for all the up-and-coming surprises of the day. It’s been a huge internal transformation.

But I got slammed back a few steps when my friend pointed out that my Taylor guitar is showing signs of cracking in the body. Not just in one place, but a couple places. This situation felt worse than a kick in the stomach for the simple fact that I’ve not always allowed myself to invest myself in the biggest passion I’ve had since birth; music. For some reason, or for many (such as “you’re not good enough”/”you’re not worthy”/”you don’t deserve it”) I’ve invested in other things that come and go, but very seldom have I invested in instruments, equipment, lessons, etc. It took me a long time to reach a place of self-acceptance and self-love, a place that felt safe enough finally to purchase a really nice guitar that quite frankly was “beyond my means”; more than what I could afford. But I saw it as an investment. Not just an investment in my own music career, but an enormous investment in my soul.

And a year and a month later it’s already broken. And I feel that familiar “tearing apart” that loss often yields in its wake.

I just got off the phone with the man whose hands are going to try to lovingly restore her. I’ve been beating myself up, wishing I would have watched more closely, investigated what needed to be done in order to properly and completely care for such a valued part of my life. And this is what I was told after talking about how difficult it can be to monitor the proper humidity levels. (I’ve been semi-joking that the guitar is trying to catch up with my own dings and scrapes and brokenness.)

According to Tim;

One never knows when a guitar is built where the wood came from and where the wood that once was a tree survived. What conditions surrounded it. Usually if a guitar cracks, especially a cedar top, chances are that tree lived an extremely stressed life from the very beginning. It probably knew all kinds of adversity that other trees weren’t subjected to. It probably suffered periods of drought, of torrential downpours; extremes. Most likely, that tree was damaged, but remained so incredibly strong it managed to make “the cut”. And once shaped and molded into its new state, one can never know the misuse, the dropping, the twisting or bending or reshaping that that thin layer was put under, the tension constantly present. It might have been neglected.  And once it was held and cared for, it was allowed to give in to the pressures it had always known. And the places that now are weak are asking to be supported, to be reinforced. Those additions might change its sound quality – slightly. Maybe for the worse, but most likely for the better. And there might be more repairs that need tended to in the future. But chances are, the guitar will be stronger than ever, more beautiful than ever, scarred but “added to” because of the character marks it will proudly portray.

I’m a little bit blown away by this new life lesson given through an experience that at first felt so negative and so heavy. This guitar found me. It sang to me, spoke to me when I heard it played for the first time. It continues doing so each time I look at it, play it, hold it. And from this day on, I will cherish it all the more for its strength and daring and determination.