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My former teacher used to tell the story of her Bike Ride of Faith.
I just had my Compost Bin Roll of Faith.
I worked in Concord this afternoon. (Bookkeeping for E’s Dad! And I got to meet his Grandpa! It was awesome, lots of fun.) However, BART had a mechanical problem and it took me nearly 2 hours to get home. During that time I wrote off my little head of steam. I continued to look at the bargains I had made with God….IF The Man had worked out, oh I would have been so willing to be GOOD. And The Man has not ever worked out (according to my plan) and there’s still program to work, bills to pay, health to take care of, and it’s my week to take out the compost bin. Thanks, Jerky God, for sending me that kick to the ovaries and leaving the responsibilities piled high as if my heart were intact and fully functional. Heinous. Poor moi.
So once I got home I talked to my roommate a little bit about how my unwillingness was there, but I’d pretend like it wasn’t and I’d just roll the dang thing out. Even though life is not at all going according to my plan and I really don’t feel like following the good script. Pout pout pout.
So I’m rolling this heavy thing, taller than waist-high, through our dark basement. I’m lugging it and praying at the same time. I put my arm out in case there were spider webs and bent and softened my knees in case there were holes in the old floor boards. I get it while I’m there in the dark that it’s significant that I’m rolling this heavy thing blindly and trusting something to get it through and out to the street.
And I also get it just then how I judge God as a coward for not showing up in skin right in front of me so we can talk person to person. That seems so chicken to be all invisible and ubiquitous and anywhere and everywhere at the same time, while we’re here rotting away in bodies and not understanding jackdoodle. How on earth could man have been created in God’s image if we can’t see or touch God? This theory is just not holding up under examination for me. And I’m trying to think of a comparable scenario in which I’m God. I know I’m going to live forever and I “know” everything. I think I’ll create a big ol’ hive of little things that will die in a short amount of time and understand hardly anything at all, but think they have it practically all figured out!
A few things helped me realize that Kind Of Very Big Deal thing. (Oh, it’s just that I’ve been totally mad at The Way Things Are and I keep blaming other people, even though they’re just in their own confused rotting bodies just like I am. There’s just not any way at the ultimate level that any human beings are not playing for the same big team. Opted in upon birth, like it or not.)
Reading B’i's-recommended book (We by Robert Johnson; also got through lots of it on the epic journey home tonight), I was enraptured by passages like this.
p 61 ” We have taken the God-image out of the temple, out of heaven, and suddenly relocated it here in our midst, contained in the relationship between two human beings….In the feeling of being possessed by our loves, of being caught up in some power that completely overwhelms us, we rediscover our religious life.”
Oh! How unfair! I’ve been doing that all along, then feeling so disappointed in the Not-God human that I had such high hopes for!
p 71 “It still hasn’t occurred to Western man to stop looking on woman as the symbol of something and to begin seeing her simply as a woman-as a human being. He is caught in the ambivalence he feels toward his own inner feminine, sometimes rushing toward it in search of his lost soul, sometimes disdaining it as a needless complication in his life, a “‘wrench in the gears’ of his patriarchal machinery. This is the unhealed split within man that he projects onto outer woman, the war he fights at her expense.”
Thank you so much. I got solace from that. If I die of heart ache, put that on my tomb. (And end it with, “She tried real hard to be a good martyr, but her personality just got in the way.”)
p 78 “If a woman is ignored or hurt by a man, she will often find a way to turn his sword against him, to wound him through his own power drive. But in the instant that a man wakes up to his own need, offers his love, and affirmatively relates to her, woman has an almost magical power to forgive…..The feminine, whether in a woman or a man, will usually drop her grudges, and forget the wounds of the past if she is offered genuine relatedness and affection in the present. This is one of the most noble and beautiful instincts in woman, one of the ways that she serves and transforms life. Relatedness is her first principle, the dominant theme of nature, that for which, more than all else, she lives.”
YES YES YES
Ha! now that I’ve been granted the grace to “get” these things, now let’s look at actual behavior.
What do I do when someone turns around and actually DOES want to play with me, all of me, as I am? How often do I run or block or deflect or excuse myself for lame reasons?
What do I do when I feel genuine connection with Spirit? How often do I speed up my life to try and escape the high-octane purity of that radiance?
How have I handled my own awakening experiences, during and after which I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that all is as it should be, and I am never alone, not one of us is ever alone? Did I go back to my addictions? Did I find new ones? Did I repeat unskillful habits? Tres oui.
Okay, at this point those of you who are “nice” are saying, woah, B, go easy, you’re just human. I know. AND it’s true! If I’m going to be all scrappy-girl-in-the-boxing-ring, I’d better be ready to fully participate in the fight!
Oh, something else I got today is forgiveness of myself for the times I’ve “broken hearts”. I saw they were just going for their own deeply religious experience by feeling that much and pursuing so strongly.
So where does that leave me on this fine mid-December day?
I can’t make anyone else open up. I can’t make anyone else play. I can’t change anyone else’s feelings.
I can love myself. I can love other people whether they are around or not. I can practice metta meditation. I can share with you the format I’ve been given for metta (“lovingkindness”) meditation.
This is not the complete instruction. (Oh! How helpful! I just learned something new from this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mett%C4%81)
But the basic format (and see further instruction for which names to choose)
May (person) be free from suffering
May (person) be healthy and at ease
May (person) be clear of mind
May (person) feel held and warm and seen
May (person) feel joyful and satisfied
May you be all those things and more.
With love to all~
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
My Darling,
It’s hailing, thundering, and lightning right now in San Francisco. It’s the first time in 11 years you’ve seen them all at once and just the third time of seeing any of them individually in that whole time. When people ask you if you miss the East Coast, you tell them a thing you miss a lot is watching thunderstorms from the porch. You saw a bright beautiful rainbow from your back porch this morning while you were eating a quiet breakfast.
Your relational life shifted a whole, whole lot today. Well, it had been going that direction but the deep punctuation came today. It’s kind of like that part of you that was suffering was an animal with a compound fracture and it got a mercy killing today. You send him with love and you’re doing the thing you didn’t know if you’d be able to do. And importantly, you reached out for positive healthy appropriate support when the news you didn’t want to hear came through. That’s how lasting healthy changes start….just one little action. You’re also on the receiving end of a version of the disappearing act you pulled on so many men before. Karma, my love…sometimes you put it out there and it boomerangs back to you. Oh, and don’t forget you did that to your family, too, for a while; oh yeah. Sometimes it’s the human way. Sometimes it’s the best we can do to head for the hills. You even pushed him away a lot in the beginning and you’re doing a great job of remembering that now. Bless you, Karma, for keeping nature in balance.
How perfect is it that you are on a juicy Step 2 revisitation right now? You’ve been getting so much insight from working this step lately. Some of the AA literature is now planted in your mind and you’ve been able to call on it now, specifically this passage:
“The girl we wanted to marry had other notions; we prayed God that she’d change her mind, but she didn’t. We prayed for healthy children, and were presented with sick ones, or none at all. We prayed for promotions at business, and none came. Loved ones, upon whom we heartily depended, were taken from us by so-called acts of God. Then we became drunkards, and asked God to stop that. But nothing happened. This was the unkindest cut of all. ‘Damn this faith business!’ we said.”
But you haven’t damned it this time around. You know it’s for the best. You know that you’re held and safe and protected in the Flow. You caught it that sometimes when you’re out of acceptance with something, that you’re thinking God perhaps made a mistake and you’re waiting for it to be corrected, and promptly. With restitution. Not this time around, my love. Good catch, though!
You’ve grown tremendously recently by writing on the following exercise, and then sharing it with others.
“Write what he actually said. Then write what it feels like he said.”
You have felt the listeners cringe and be kind of mortified at how your mind talks to you. You are not the weak creampuff your mind tells you that you are. You’ve coped with an abuser that happens to live between your ears and you are doing the work to turn even that over. And you know that everything inside of you wants SOMETHING to live, and that part of your work is to choose what things should be fed and get to survive and grow.
You reached a turning point of a crapton of personal work this week, actually just 2 days ago. You noticed in his absence still wanting something from him, which you rationally and evidentially knew he was not able to or willing to provide. You wrote it out to yourself, what you wanted to hear. You finally got it what other people have said about your projecting your own superego into the seeming voice of other people. WOW, what a breakthrough! (No, I’m not being sarcastic. That’s a huge deal.)
4 people you hold dearly in your heart had their positions eliminated this past week, 3 of them seemingly entirely out of the blue. F O U R. That’s a lot of loss. You knew it was “out there” but it hadn’t hit so deeply home for you until this. They are all dealing with it differently, and what a gift to be able to hear what at least 2 of them are going through around it. You remember seeing the book title when you were a little kid, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” and you couldn’t understand for years why bad things would ever happen to good people (and you somehow internalized that if something bad happened then YOU were bad….maybe you should read more than the title of that book!)
You wondered if Agent could be a good job for a Projector (from Human Design). The fabulous experience with that was completing the marketing letters for the children’s book illustrator. AS YOU WERE WALKING TO MAIL THEM, a friend you hadn’t heard from in months happened to call you. When you told the friend what you were up to in that moment, he said, “I’ve written a children’s book, and have been looking for an illustrator! Would you put us in touch?” Wow wow wow wow wow
You had a wonderful experience yesterday babysitting 3 little girls, 6, 5, and 2 years old. When you were playing the White Winged Dove of Peace Queen game with one of them, you asked her if she would share with you her magical powers and give you the ability to use them on other people. She thought about it, and then carefully said,
“No, I can’t do that. When you give your power away, then you only have half a heart. If you were able to find one of those people with 2 hearts who could give you an extra one, then I’d consider it. Otherwise, I need to keep all my heart so I have power to help other people.“
You heard a great share of someone’s early recovery and what helped them. Before she did the addictive thing that she couldn’t stop, she would take at least 1 healthy action. So even though she was acting out, she was building the muscle of taking healthy action. Nice!
You had your first directly professional writing experience this week, which felt wonderful.
You remembered and got solace from the program axiom,
“I don’t have to like it to accept it.“
Your birthday is on Monday. You are going to work your damndest to not focus on what you DON’T have and instead focus on the gratitude of what you do:
-loving friends
-spiritual practices across a wide range that you can do any time
-willingness and ability to sit with feelings
-people who read what you write on this thing (thank you thank you thank you, readers!!!!!!!! you’ve already given me my gift, to be seen!)
-physical health
-renewed love of tennis and motion
-mended relationships with family that feel wonderful
-business and clients that have come your way with ease
-interesting future business partners in a range of fields
-active volunteer position that directly impacts an issue of large significance to you
-massage trade partners
-people to be “real” with
-a home in your favorite city
-and most importantly, connection to spiritual guidance
Bless you at all ages.
You are loved, and wonderful, and you are exactly where you are supposed to be.
Texas cheerleader suing – didn’t root for attacker
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
San Francisco Chronicle November 5, 2010
If you’re a high school cheerleader, you cheer for the whole team. The stars and the scrubs. The nice guys and the jerks.
But what about a player you’ve accused of raping you?
You’ve got to cheer for him too, according to a federal appeals court, because you’re really speaking for the school and not yourself.
The court dismissed a free-speech suit by a Texas teenager who was kicked off the cheerleading squad for sitting silently, with her arms folded, while her assailant shot free throws in a playoff game.
The former cheerleader and her family are appealing the ruling by the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, which includes an order to pay the school district’s legal fees on the grounds their suit was far-fetched and frivolous.
A case that has gripped a small town in southeast Texas also provides a window into the diminishing state of free speech on campus.
More than 40 years after the U.S. Supreme Court declared that neither students nor teachers “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech … at the schoolhouse gate,” the former cheerleader’s judicial rebuff reflects a shift in perspective that has the courts showing more deference to school authorities.
“What I want out of the whole thing is for somebody to admit they were wrong,” the 18-year-old woman, identifying herself by her initials H.S., said in an interview last week. After undergoing therapy and graduating from high school, she’s taking a semester off before college, where she plans to study forensic science, partly because of what happened to her.
The basketball player has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge, received a suspended sentence, and is making plans for college and “going forward with his life,” his lawyer said. He has denied raping H.S.
Court’s backtracking
The Supreme Court issued what appeared to be a declaration of free-speech rights on campus in 1969, when it allowed high school students to wear black armbands to protest the Vietnam War and said schools could clamp down only if students disrupted the educational process.
The court started to retrench in 1986 with a ruling allowing a high school to censor a student’s sexually suggestive speech at an assembly. Two years later, the court upheld a high school principal’s authority to prohibit articles on pregnancy and divorce from appearing in a student newspaper.
The Constitution does not require a school “to promote particular student speech,” the court said in a ruling that became a precedent for the H.S. case.
In 2007, the justices allowed a school to suspend a student for carrying a banner that read “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” at a school-approved parade near campus, saying the message could be interpreted as promoting drugs.
These days, “student speech is not given the respect it deserves. …There’s a mind-set that school officials are in total control,” said David Hudson, a Vanderbilt University law professor and scholar with the First Amendment Center who has written about the H.S. case.
Incident at party
H.S., then 16, attended a party in her hometown of Silsbee, Texas, in October 2008. She said she was dragged into a room, thrown onto the floor by several youths and raped by Rakheem Bolton, a star on the school’s football and basketball teams.
Bolton and a teammate were arrested two days later, but were allowed to return to school after a county grand jury declined to indict them. They were later indicted on sexual assault charges, but in the interim came the February 2009 incident on the basketball court.
H.S. joined in leading cheers for the Silsbee High team. But when Bolton went to the foul line, and the cheers included his name, she stepped back, folded her arms and sat down.
“I didn’t want to have to say his name, and I didn’t want to cheer for him,” H.S. said. “I didn’t want to encourage anything he was doing.”
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/11/05/MNDQ1G1R78.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz14imYxHww
Okay, Girlfriend, you got me again.
I am no match for you.
You killed off another one of my 9 kitty lives.
For those of you who haven’t met Girlfriend, here’s her MO:
*I saw long ago that loving him wouldn’t be enough on its own. She doesn’t care about that; she just pushes harder and tries to do ‘better’.
*She sees it as failure that we’re not able to be more like him. Then it seems like that’s what he asked for somewhere along the line, even though his words never matched that.
*If he responds ‘too quickly’ to a text or email, then she thinks he’s callous and didn’t care enough to put a good amount of thought into the reply. If he responds ‘too slowly’, then she thinks it’s evidence that he really doesn’t care after all, and that everything else in that time is insultingly higher priority than us.
*She keeps a database of some of his expressed dislikes, a TON of his dislikes that she has interpreted between the lines, and is ever vigilant to only invoke him experiencing them when she perceives it’s needed for attention or reinforcement. <<A great saying I heard in a meeting recently: “Just read the black parts.” Meaning, don’t try to read the white space between the lines.>>
*She does want to go out of control. And she hates him that we feel out of control about and around him.
*She wants credit for being loving and approving on the inside, and gets impatient when there’s the need to translate that into demonstrated action. She takes that as a sign that he’s saying we’re not enough for him and not doing it right. (Not Doing It Right and Losing are her cardinal sins.)
*She longs for his desire and approval like it’s life-saving medication. If she’s not getting it, she will go to any length to extort it.
*If the whole world isn’t 100% clear about his devotion to and care for us, she thinks he’s failing and mean.
*When she “loves” him, anyone else could see it closely resembles attempted possession and manipulation. She thinks they’re dumb and uninspired, and tries harder to “love”.
*She refuses to take her attention off of him for an instant. No matter if he is physically present or not. She fears that putting her attention on anything else will increase the likelihood of him disappearing and/or losing interest. Tabs must be kept to continue the game. The ante for this game is constant attention. Then he starts to seem high maintenance and demanding through reflection of what Girlfriend thinks.
*She hates anyone for having a need that might make the other uncomfortable. If she could take away all the needs in the world, she would. Don’t even get me started on her stance on desire.
*When he asks a question, she hears veiled judgment and implied directives.
If it were possible to have personality cancer, I think this aspect of my being would qualify.
When I was in the 8th grade, a tough little girl didn’t like a sarcastic remark I made in the locker room. She walked behind where I was sitting, put her hands around my neck, and kept squeezing. And kept squeezing. Her hands were strong, sharp, and her focus on choking me was impeccable.
Girlfriend does that to me.
And then those brave enough to play here get the collateral damage.
Girlfriend has really taken me down again lately. Back to depression, the worst in a while. She likes NOTHING about me. I think she intends to be supportive of my happiness, but it’s highly conditional and she doesn’t feel inclined to ensure that I’m happy in the process of interacting with her.
She threatens my survival in that she yells in my ear when I’m trying to get clear about how I’ll earn more income, how I’ll present myself career-wise. She truly doesn’t give a rat’s butt about anything but trying to keep Him. Emphasis on Keep. She’s a killer. She sees it as victory if she kills her prey….hey, she kept him, right?
I was fortunate enough today to spend time in the company of 2 beautiful generous women. They helped remind me of my inherent value as a woman, regardless of what poison Girlfriend has been leaking in my ear.
They held me. They helped move my energy from my dry overworked head, down into my beautiful empty body. I cuddled with one of them and cried on her chest for almost an hour.
Girlfriend goes through life expecting to be dumped, rejected, left behind, taken for granted, underestimated, used and abused. She expects this before she even meets you.
One of my healing angels from today has 2 cute little dogs. As you know, I love ‘dem puppies. The reminder today was exquisite. She said, “Isn’t it great how they go through life just EXPECTING to be loved? Everyone they approach, they’re ready to love them and be loved.”
To those who suffer from chronic pain,
I am so sorry.
I am sorry that I ever thought you were making it up or exaggerating.
Like so much in the spiritual realm, just because one can’t see or touch it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
I am humbly waiting, white-knuckling, anxiously and hopefully waiting for the 2008-labeled ibuprofen that I found in my bathroom to kick in.
CRAMPS. OWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.
With my period this time also come nausea, some dizziness, general weakness.
The silver linings:
*I’ve been overly scheduling again for the last month at least and this gives me no choice but to slow down and take a pause.
(break to visit bathroom again. Either # 6 or 7 today, not sure. Sorry, people, I’m keepin it on the realio today.)
*As previously mentioned, I am swimming in compassion galore for other people who have physical pain.
*I will catch up on some reading when I’m done with you.
*Mom and I had a great woman-to-woman conversation today about what her cycle was like and how it changed over time.
OWWWWWWWWW.
**************************
I saw an old-school One Taster today and I avoided eye contact. Not proud to tell you that, but it’s true. She was at OT when I got there, and left probably a year or so later. She was one of the first people to say she was just done and the system was just done with her. No 1 person necessarily decides when it’s time for someone to leave. It’s a really neat organism that way. I didn’t really believe her at the time, when she said that about just being done. I thought it was an excuse to get her way and then blame it on something external. Then I had my own experience, and it was just like that. My time there was just done. I didn’t pick that to be the path, it just was.
So why didn’t I say hello to her today? She and I are on fine terms. We definitely share a rare experience. It’s not every day I see someone, especially in my ‘hood, who *knows*.
(Hold, please. Bathroom again. This is unreal.)
To revisit section 1. I’ve been ashamed that ever since a little girl I wondered how could a woman ever be President with having to go through pain and serious alteration once a month. Just now I questioned why we have it set up that the whole country rides so much on 1 person’s shoulders. There, I got out the shame. Carry on with section 2.
In retrospect I didn’t say hello to her because, a) sometimes I’m just lazy, and b) I didn’t want to face her opinion. Which, in the absence of a real conversation is just a projection of my own opinion, right. So here’s the conversation I expected to have.
Her: So what’s new with you?
Me: Oh, I’m living in Noe Valley now. (secretly I know why. Last roommate was major mental sickage and I shouldn’t have moved in there so quickly. Yet the previous roommate was also major mental sickage and what a freakin’ failure that feels like to have chosen that twice in a row. What is up with that. I never would have picked Noe Valley because I plan to have neither a baby or a dog.)
Her: And what are you doing for work now that you left OneTaste?
Me: I’m self-employed. It was going really well but now I feel a major pinch since I’m 20 hours with 1 client a week who I LOVE, yet the gig doesn’t sustain me as much as I need financially. I’m ending with another client who I respect and revere and underneath it all feel I wasn’t good enough for her (she got another assistant to be fulltime and onsite and lives an hour away from me). For a while in the beginning, I was doing this home organizing thing and it brought up a bunch of issues for me around my worth and value, my obsessiveness, my sometimes difficulty in following through and finishing things, and my inability to withstand uncertainty and financial insecurity. And before that I blew out on doing massage therapy when it also brought up tons of issues around my sexuality, aging process, ego (needing to do something that felt intelligent), and dealing with peoples’ desire who I found difficult to accept. Oh, and add a raging control fetish into all this.
Her: (probably backing away awkwardly by now) Um, are you seeing anyone?
Me: Yes! There is a man that I adore. Of course it’s tricky because, hey, I came out as bisexual so what am I doing exploring a traditional-seeming relationship with a guy? And I often feel like I’m 1 and 3/4′s feet off the cliff in the relationship….my abandonment issues are alive and kicking, let me tell you! I’m finding it really difficult to do all the things I want to do, and sometimes I can hide behind the relationship, which I know, ironically, is something that could kill it the quickest and killing it is one of the things I *least* want to do. Unless you ask my internal saboteur, who has her bags packed and is ready to change her identity and land in a midwestern state, try to start all over again and do it right this time, and maybe rob a bank on the way there to make things a little easier and more exciting.
Her: Sounds like maybe your time at OneTaste was the peak of your production and value.
Me: I often worry that is exactly right. I do not perceive that I am getting it together post-OT. I really thought I would have done something brilliant by now.
Her: What do you want? (we used to always ask people that at OneTaste, and I used to ask it in the tone like they knew it and weren’t saying it)
Me: That I can’t tell you that feels like the biggest failure of all. I want to be as brilliant and innovative as Seth Godin. I want to be as beautiful and charming as Ashley Judd. I want to be as successful as Steve Jobs. I want to be as diversified and impactful as Oprah. I want to start a noble lineage of my own, yet I don’t necessarily want to procreate. Nothing is good enough.
Her: Wow, have you learned *anything* in all of your courses and programs and whatnot?
Me: Some. I like some parts of myself better than I used to. I can meditate now. I don’t always WANT to, but at least I can tolerate it. I have a pretty good friendship going with my inner child and my Higher Power. I do like where I’m living and who I’m living with. I do genuinely love my close friends, and many people that I keep loosely associated with. I have fairly good boundaries with my family now, whereas that used to be nonexistent. I learned how to do financial counseling since I left OT, and that has been amazing and even though I worry about my money, I have a solid plan around it. I read some of a book today by a Stanford whiz kid (generally the person I’m MOST likely to be envious of these days) about learning how to become rich. There was NOTHING I didn’t already know thanks to the Dave Ramsey work I’ve studied and practiced. So all that is good.
Her: But is that really enough?
Me: Of course it is not! I definitely should be doing more and better! I should be at the highest bar at all times! And I definitely shouldn’t be at home, having killer cramps, wasting time on writing about talking to myself!!!!!
Like that.
