Say Yes

This advice has gotten much more refined as I’ve played with it over time.

The controlling neurotic perfectionists will likely be able to relate the most to what treacherous bridges must be crossed to begin Saying Yes.

It can be all-out war inside.

I’ve enjoyed many delicious examples of Yes today. That I’m here at all is  big fat Yes.

Where am I? Gesalen, FriendHusband’s woodland retreat. I got out of bed just minutes ago, and it is 2:30pm. (Okay, I peed and ate breakfast, but still.)

Why am I here? This afternoon I begin a 4-day silent retreat at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, CA. Gesalen is just up the road.

What did it take for me to get here?

*willingness to spend the money (but I’ve already done retreats, why do I need to do another one/ I’ll never save up enough for a house down payment if I keep this up/ but can’t I just meditate for free at home and at the Integral Center?)

*willingness to take a few days off from my business (HARD – what if clients forget me/what if clients choose someone else because I’m not around/I don’t work all THAT hard so why the heck am I taking a break from it, etc.)

*willingness to be friends with FriendHusband at all (but he’s much older than I am/but he…lots of his business I won’t dish)

*willingness to not travel East over the holiday (but family really only gets together once a year/but they’d do all the work and why am I so selfish that I keep myself away from them at a special time/you never know how much longer any of us have on Earth)

*willingness to let go my rigid control around my food choices (but what if I gain weight and then really nobody wants to make out with me/but what if I can’t “control” myself/shouldn’t I “behave” since I’m just emerging from a hard time?)

And on and on.

And you know what, I stared at the trees and the rain and listened to my second favorite sound in the world for hours today. I wouldn’t trade anything for it. FriendHusband offered to go to the store while I laid in bed for my breakfast and lunch, so there went that worry without my having to do anything but tell him what I wanted. I asked him to play with my hair which I love love love, and he did and it felt wonderful. I usually tease him about his astrological study, but I was in a good space to hear it (yeses beget yeses) and it was actually fascinating how he explained it.  (My chart says I’m mainly about sex and death and uncovering the unseen things in life. AND I’ll have tender feelings about the whole thing. Woah! That works!)

I said Yes yesterday when FriendHusband and Yam encouraged me to do the whole 9 yards of the retreat, which means 5am-10pm each day. I have this thing that I only want to say Yes when I can 100% guarantee I will do it. But that’s not really a dynamic approach. I meant it then. And then when I thought it through today, I realized my motivations for doing the retreat that way would be in pleasing and proving. Been there, done that, got the suffering T-shirt. So today I’m a Yes to NOT doing it from 5am-10pm each day, because I’ve learned about myself and my constitution that it wouldn’t work well for my health, really in any way. Could I force myself? I think so. Do I want to? Kind of, because I don’t want to get teased. Am I going to? No I’m not. There is a broader picture to consider, and I pray for guidance in continuing to consider it every day.

So I’m curious today, to what have you said Yes to? To what would you like to say Yes to, and what might be in the way? What’s the “long tail” as they say for what your specific yeses may lead to?

Happy Yes’ing

Pay Up, Lady

Love the tape deck! Love the black halter and black nails!

 

I’ve had to cut myself off from listening to anymore Susan Tedeschi today. Love her too but you see I’ve made this playlist of 5 of her songs that talk about being left, lost lover blues, having fallen in love with a sturdy man that she thought would always be there, oh, and the best one for crying is about she can’t reach him because he’s wrapped in the arms of another. OW OW OW OW OW

I know it’s not entirely about me. He’s going through about one of the worst things he could be going through. If I could take that away I would. If I could re-do some of the corporate values that I imagine got him in the awful situation, I would.

A friend told me yesterday, “Beth, you got kicked in the gut. It’s okay to just feel that now. You don’t have to be totally spiritual and accepting. Have your feelings about it.”

There is a program exercise to identify:

“Why is this the best thing that has ever happened to me?”

F***** hell. Oy. Okay might as well. I wasn’t expecting this post to go there.

1) The pain had me reach out to TONS of people and reconnect and be reminded that I’m loved and appreciated.

2) I had a divinely healing experience back on the edge last night, which I will write about separately behind the Silver Curtain. (Oh, and the password issue should be fixed now. Shoot me an email if it still doesn’t work for you.  beth@unconditionalserenity.com)

3) The title of this post. Oh my lord, am I feeling those back taxes of relationships that I left immediately and without feeling it at the time. I have SO much gratitude for the ones who made it through and we are still friends. I want to be that brave. E just sent me a Happy Birthday text, for example, and the way I cut him off back then was, now I know, practically unforgiveable. And he forgave me and we’re not the closest of friends but there’s love there that we get to express.

4) Last night FriendHusband was my birthday chauffeur extraordinnaire. At one point in time, the plan was to see Cadillac last night after seeing FriendHusband for an hour or 2 where I probably would have been anxiously awaiting the time I could go get face and body time with Cadillac. Instead, FriendHusband and I had some really sweet rich adventures. One of them, a small but significant one. I returned a due book to the library. I hadn’t finished it but couldn’t renew it. I took a few moments to thumb through it in the car. Oh wow, wouldn’t you know the part I hadn’t read happened to be about grieving the end of relationships. Not the linear total end, that was the interesting thing. It talked about how each phase in the relationship when you get more reality that it’s not perfect, it may not work, it’s not the be all end all, that health is grieving those at the time. Well that’s interesting and I never thought about that. It helped me understand some of the back taxes phenomenon I was talking about paying. Not only were there relationships I jumped ship from without giving them the proper respect, there have also been these losses along the way that I didn’t feel because either we were still ostensibly together, or I didn’t think I “should” feel them or something like that. It also said it’s impossible to grieve the loss of 1 while you’re moving on to another person. Yep, learned that through experience, too. Hope to be more disciplined about that this time around.

5) I’ve been willing to ask for more, for whatever reason. I guess with a cracked open heart and a psychic and emotional place that was vacated by a best friend and lover, there is more willingness on my part to maybe hear No when I ask. And to hear Yes. Example. My roommate asked me this morning if I had any special birthday requests. It culminated in her brushing my hair (one of my favorite treats), French braiding it, and leaving her fabulous essential oils collection in my room to enjoy today. Fun!

There’s more but it’s time to go for now. Thanks again everyone for reading. My critical voice tells me “You just write about yourself. You’re so self-absorbed.” But I know some of the themes are universal. OH! And part of the last night experience that I don’t want to forget is that I consider part of my life’s purpose to be giving people permission to be exactly who they are. That has always been important for me, I just didn’t have words for it until adulthood.

So I pray for today to include myself in that.

I pray that Cadillac travels safely and has a wonderful time.

I pray to engage in my re-exploration (Now behind the Bodily Spiritual Practice header; formerly called Medi) in healthy and conscious ways.

I pray that you know how special you are, and that you express your gifts.

I pray that people get free to be sane and connected and nourished.

I pray that you’ll tell at least one little truth today that you may not otherwise have dared. (Example for me. Morning with Charlie’s Angels included a conversation about my edge play that I had assumed they couldn’t handle. But they did and it was beautiful.)

I pray that you listen to your body well today. Do you need to hydrate? Do you need a hug? Do you need to rest your eyes for a few minutes?

I pray that you welcome every little part of you that wants to speak up.

I’ll leave you with this inspiration from a meditation book.

“One must not lose desires. They are mighty stimulants to creativeness, to love, and to long life.” ~Alexander Bogomoletz

 

Transition Lenses

I’ve had a couple of experiences lately of being in a twosome dynamic where I’m in a role on the opposite end of where I used to be. I don’t know how to say that more clearly so I’ll just give the examples.

When I was living and working in community I had the consistent experience of people wanting to build friendships with me, and me saying either in words or actions that I didn’t have the bandwidth for it. Granted, some of that is my social anxiety that has me hide out from building relationships. But truthfully there were times when I genuinely cared about the person, and just wasn’t willing to make space or didn’t perceive that I could make space to spend downtime with them.

Now that I’m out of residential community, I’m more interested in cultivating those downtime relationships. I’m not always great at it, and I still have the social anxiety, but I at least perceive I have more flexibility in my schedule and more willingness.

So there’s one woman who I absolutely adore who I met at OneTaste. She’s fun, interesting, gets the spiritual/sensual exploration, witty (darkly so sometimes, even better), smart, and has done healing work similar to what I’ve done. For a while after I moved out she and I had a monthly friend date. It was SO great knowing I had that to look forward to. I noticed at the time how relieved I felt to have that agreement with her because we didn’t correspond much in between those times, and I really missed her and felt curious in between hang-outs. I remembered someone who practically begged me to make an agreement like that with them. They said they loved being together and didn’t want to totally lose touch with me, which seemed like would happen unless we had that container. (They were right. It did happen. I don’t even know where they live now.)

So at some point the woman dropped off communication or setting date times with me. I called her a couple of times and played it casual, knowing she’s really busy. Then when I didn’t hear back after weeks I emailed her a couple of times. I started to feel that niggling sense of desperation when you just can’t reach someone at all. The last communication was me telling her point blank it would really help for her to just call or email and say she didn’t want to be my friend, that that would be kinder than not saying anything at all. Total silence.

So it hurt and hurt and hurt. Then she and I passed each other on the street recently. Old friends tease me about my “tight-lipped” look. That’s when I can’t hide my disapproval. So this friend who I love and long for got the tight-lipped treatment. We did a quick hug, then she said she was late for a meeting and ran off. Awkward much?

Weeks went by and I felt like a child for having treated her that way. What, my love comes with the condition of communication? So I emailed her to apologize for having given her the cold shoulder. She responded graciously and took responsibility and said back at the time she just didn’t want to disappoint me any further.

I hope someday I can maintain a wide-open approving space for friends no matter how close or far they are to me.

There was another example but I’ve forgotten it by now. There’s yet another example but I’m not willing to share it for the world. LOL I’ve been reading a book on Ethics and am trying to lie less often, even by omission.  An interesting study they quote said that people consider themselves 97% trustworthy and consider their friends and coworkers 75% trustworthy. It expands on that with another study that the liar thinks it’s not a big deal, but the one lied to often disagrees!

Oh, I remembered the other example. Yeh, this one has more juice to it for me so I guess I blocked it out from not wanting to feel it. I’m 85% sure I’m transitioning out of a healing community I’ve been participating in. There is 1 person in particular who has exchanged some heated emails with me about it. I read it that she’s feeling defensive of the group and herself, and it’s a bit of an attachment minefield for me. Keep your distance and I come closer. Come running and screaming towards me and I’ll do the same in the opposite direction. So it’s a tough spot but I want to  hang in there and not disconnect.

I have been in her shoes. Being a stalwart in a community can be tough when people can come and go easily. I can draw on that experience now to know it just hurts when someone you care about decides to move on.

AND this is tough spot because I don’t know if I’m moving on out of illusion, or out of sensible growth direction that I just can’t know all the details to now. The bottom line of it is I hope to learn something by doing instead of learning how to not do. I think I know how to not do. I know how to submerge and even dissipate desires. Heck, I’ve been known to convincingly act like people or troubles just don’t exist at all, even if they are arm’s length away from me. Not doing, not the problem. Doing and infusing health and connection and flexibility and intuition….that’s what I want AND what I perceive I need guidance and accountability and patience around. And I don’t know what’s fair to expect around that when addiction is at play. Addiction is in my core. I’m open to it disappearing from my life yet I don’t realistically see that happening. The Big Book of AA defines what we addicts get instead of  a”cure”, is “a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition”.  So today I hope to reach out for that and let those mysterious (or not) tendrils find me and welcome me in. Maybe I’m wrong to leave this community, but if I stayed now it would be out of fear or to please others or to avoid their disappointment. If I go back, it will be that I know I’m choosing it instead of making a non-choice.

Oh gosh, I need to add the totally separate issue that the curtain rod is still not up and the bed is halfway put together thanks to Cadillac stepping in at the midnight hour. My queendom for a crescent wrench and the continued willingness to ask for help when I genuinely need it. FriendWife and I talked yesterday about different ways we seem to prolong our sense of struggle. Whazzup with that.

And I still need and want to learn Quickbooks. There are 2-day classes for $500, which I will not be doing. So I should add to that intention I need and want to learn Quickbooks AFFORDABLY!