-- a journey into awareness
I’m mad that you are not getting it.
Can’t you see the pattern?
Over and over again?
Getting the same results?
Running won’t get you anywhere.
You need to dig deep and find the
courage to face his lies about you.
To trust you aren’t what he tells you,
not even what you tell yourself.
Dad’s winning
I am so angry, so helpless.
Three glasses of wine aren’t helping.
What do I do?
Where’s my center?
It’s my pattern over
and over again.
Hilarious!
We are joined at the hip.
Beliefs about the world,
God and ourselves
Shaping our lives
coloring our perceptions
determining our experience
Some beliefs known
others lying hidden
in cellular memory
to be unraveled
like a Gordian Knot
Slowly cutting the string
they’re brought to light
where in consciousness,
examined, we can decide
Is it true?
I’ve been in touch with the power of our beliefs for some time. Beliefs influence our perception, both what what we see and how we see it. And, as a result, beliefs determine our experience of things.
I’ve known my belief “themes”, for lack of a better word, for some time. Mainly “I’m not good enough” and “I can’t play with the ‘big guys’.” I’ve learned with help to see the consequences of such beliefs, e.g., self-sabotage, self doubt…. But I never felt a real shift.
Recently, in my work with visioning and meditation (translation, a form of prayer and listening to the small voice within), I received the core of what’s been driving me: “I was rejected by family, God, it was a done deal, there’s no use trying.”
Note: My family would be horrified to know what conclusions I came to as a very young girl. I’ve long sense done the work of understanding and forgiving those involved. Still, the belief was operating out of sight in my cellular memory. It’s what unrecognized beliefs do.
So, when this belief came to me and resonated so deeply, I knew it was what’s been driving me. With the consciousness I hold now, I could see it is not true and never was. I feel lighter. It has lost its power over me.
We all have stories. We all have hidden beliefs. I want to testify that we can be free of them. Be free to love more fully ourselves and others. And so it is.
If you don’t look too closely
it’s perfect, the riot of colors
the hopeful Spring in bloom
The Butterweed looks intentional
the migrated Goldenrod fills in holes
the wild grasses soften the sharp edges
Only up close when you pick out
the unwanted clover and ground elder
thin the uncontrolled growth of lamb’s ears
Only when you look closely and decide
“not that, not here” does dissatisfaction
start to drain the magnificence of what you see.
This Spring brought to mind the John Cage quote, “What makes you think I’m not something you like?” I wonder, at what point are we blinded to the beauty around us because we’re too busy getting rid of what we don’t like. Are we too conditioned as to what is acceptable, beautiful, worth having?
I think it’s a really good question if you can dig deep enough to get past all that you’ve learned, past what you think is socially acceptable for no good reason other than conformity. I’m beginning to ask: “What do I love?” vs. judging what I don’t like. It’s got forward movement and opens my heart. We’ll see…
“What makes you think I’m not something you like?”
[When we don’t like what is going on in our lives, around us….]
Perfection
What if where we are is exactly
where we’re supposed to be?
The result of past decisions and
beliefs we held so dearly as true…
It’s the chance for us to really look,
to see clearly what we’ve co-created
and choose differently.
Everything I react to is but a mirror
of the inner world I live in.
Reacting is seeded in fear,
my world, my self, what I care about
is threatened.
Only Love can respond anew.
Love can say “no, stop, enough”…
but love never loses itself in rage or fear.
Love knows the God spark
in every situation,
in everyone,
in me.
What if we are exactly where
we’re supposed to be?
Words don’t comfort me
My sense of self is fading
My mind stalls
Fear of rejection,
need for approval
seep out in the confusion.
I know this is a test.
Giving up or standing
in the truth of who
I am beyond conditioning,
beyond the fears ,
beyond the comfortable.
Trust ….I never used to
Now I do but still…….
I’m restless
How hard can it be
to rewire a brain? a heart?
a life?
A period of dormancy – a seed waiting:
“It turns out that there is no “right” or “wrong” way to grow into a hundred-year-old tree: there are only ways that work and ways that do not.
A seed knows how to wait. Most seeds wait for at least a year before starting to grow; a cherry seed can wait for a hundred years with no problem. What exactly each seed is waiting for is known only to that seed. Some unique trigger-combination of temperature-moisture-light and many other things is required to convince a seed to jump off the deep end and take its chance—to take its one and only chance to grow…
…When you are in the forest, for every tree that you see, there are at least a hundred more trees waiting in the soil, alive and fervently wishing to be…
from “Lab Girl “ by Hope Jehren
Thanks to Improvised Life for this reminder: https://www.improvisedlife.com/2016/06/13/the-secret-treasure-within-lab-girl/
My New Year resolution:
To choose each morning to
listen for Love’s guidance
To choose to remember
the Divine in all of us,
To remember that
God does not mess with us
Rather we just get lost :
Taking in the words of others
Replaying memories that bind
letting looming fears freeze us cold.
Making judgments and comparisons
separating ourselves from ourselves
and from others.
Instead I choose to remember:
God whispers in our hearts giving us the next step
Saying “what’s real is only what is here now”
released from the drama of the past
and the fears of what’s not yet happened
Joy hovers in the quiet space of now
Play your part, let the rest go
Trust Me
Love will find a way.
I feel this is a sacred time for me. As opposed to rushing in and filling my time, I’m allowing myself to go slowly. To listen to what I really want to do and to not do things just because I’m asked or they show up. In a way, the project I’m dedicated to is my own becoming. The major shifts in my life over the past 4 years have shaken things up. And I’m realizing what a gift that can be. To life: its beauty, complexity and possibilities!
At night
I won’t let myself
feel the loneliness.
How much can you eat
or drink?
Not enough it turns out.
Time heals––not.
It’s letting yourself feel
what there is to feel.
But I don’t want to!
Not at night, not when
the emptiness overpowers.
I’m giving myself permission to suffer. If you resist what is, you suffer. But how much easier it can be to suffer then to accept what is. Especially the feelings; feeling lost, alone, disoriented, sad, scared….
It’s month #8 and the being alone in the evening, and on long drives, is even more intense. I don’t know what to do with myself.
I’ve gone back over my posts and they seem like variations on the same themes. How do you stay true to yourself, find yourself, just be with whatever is happening. Simple things are sometimes the hardest. And so it is with just letting yourself feel. Oh well,
I’m learning I can pay attention, but I can’t seem to make it all go away. Wait! wanting it to go away, that’s resistance isn’t it?
and the beat goes on…..
“Scientists live in mystery every day of our lives … People are uncomfortable not knowing, not the scientists. I’m fine. We don’t know what it is. [We] keep checking it out.” astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson*
Living with not knowing
Not assuming what others think
or what their past has been
Not judging good or evil
Not comparing self to others.
Worries reveal themselves as imaginary
From the middle of disaster, compassion is shown
After cruelty, forgiveness cracks open hearts
Our wounds source our growth
Nothing is entirely as it seems.
Everything real is now
It’s going on in this moment
Act if you’re called, but don’t rest
keep checking, always
knowing you don’t.
*http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/20/us/neil-degrasse-tyson-ufos-new-day-cnntv/index.html
I’ve no sense of time but I count the months
I deny the heaviness, I lie in bed.
What’s the point I ask myself,
my anchor is gone.
You start collecting “firsts”
First time you sign a card with your name only
The first big family celebration without him
The first Uber adventure I can’t share.
How hard the crust must be
for it to take so long,
the realization he’s gone
the space not to be filled.
How often I wanted to tell him
something I knew he’d get.
The endless decisions now
mine to make.
Going forward, being here now
(sorry Ram Dass) is all there is.
It always was but part of me
hadn’t yet been tested.
So will I stay “here” or run away?
tempting to zone out
to stuff the rage that creeps up…
to not have to learn to be
…..me.
Epilogue: to all those who’ve gone from an “us” to a “me,” a virtual hug.
