Space - Spiritual Awakening

I had a lot of time on my own this holiday I didn't feel like forcing my plans on the universe and decided to just let life it's natural course. This decision left me empty and a little panicked that my life has become so small. This is just my mind working against me.  I decided to try to just relax and accept things the way they are instead of wishing them to magically be different.

When the anxiety of being alone comes to the surface the first thing I want to do is blame myself.  I blame where I am on all the bad decisions I have made.  Choosing the wrong people to love or picking the road less traveled spiritually and alienating myself from my family.

If only I had done things differently my life would have ended up like one of those holiday TV movies.  This thought is about about control I tried that route when I was younger.  I was still abandoned by the people that were suppose to love me.  At that point with the help of the program I decided to let go and just go where ever life took me.  I was happier by far but in the end I was left again.   At that point I decided there was something wrong with me. Another lie I told myself.

This is just life and you just have to deal with it.  I feel I am ready to enjoy life again and feel another shift happening.  With work being slow right now I decided to clean out my office after five years. It was so busy when I started and I have had my head down learning.  Where does the time go?

I cleared out all those old files some where I had invested so much time and paperwork in people that never came to anything.  This is a little disheartening but I am seasoned now and have a different process for handling customers and purging my files. Ironically the first person I waited on yesterday I had been to their house two years ago and now they are ready. I still had that file. Funny.

Doing nothing is really scary but it can bring on an awakening.   Getting past the doer in me is hard with the list of things that I want to do along with with the things that need to be done.  I felt frozen even after lecturing myself daily about all the valuable time I was wasting.  I did do a few things like baking cookies for the office and on Christmas day going to a friends open house and then to an Al-Anon meeting. It was my home group location and it felt good.

The meeting was on the 12th step and it did give me an opportunity to see just how many awakenings I have had over the years.  Some in your face awakenings and some revealed slowly over time.  Awakenings require you to step back from your situation sometime willingly and other time by force it seems we have no choice.

Today I am feeling good.  Just writing this has made me trust the awkward space between me and myself.  It is sometimes ugly being me and I have hurt myself and other people trying to figure things out.  It was never intentional or personal just like the people that hurt me.  We are just trying to make it through life the best we can even if it isn't always good enough.  It is what we have at the moment.

I can see I needed this empty time to evaluate where I have been and where I want to go and make choices in that direction. I don't micro manage my life anymore and I don't let my life run me either so I have come to middle and I can make decision today to my life a little better.

Safety Net - Anxiety

This week I started watching Big Eyes on Netflix but something about the impending disaster of the main character was more than I could bear.  I guess I can relate in some way to being sucked in by some charming person that promises you the world and then turns out to be just another person trying to survive and putting their needs first.

She wanted a quick fix the story book romance.  She was divorced back when women that were divorced were shunned. Today that seems it would be everyone.  I think we all want someone to make of feel less scared about life and our future.  When you are by yourself from time to time it feels like your out there on a high wire without a net.

I use to say I needed a soft place to land.  I have experienced that a few times in my life.  I did feel that in my last relationship.  I felt security even if it was a false sense of security.  All feelings of security are false at least long term security anyway.  We are human and have a limited amount of time here and we never know what will happen next.

I sometimes deal with mild anxiety to me this feels like when you have had way too much caffeine A restlessness overcomes me and I can't shake it.  It doesn't seem like it is tied to a particular event or even a thought in my head. This happened the other night and I decided to jump rope to see if that would get rid of the anxiety. It absolutely worked.

This made me wonder if a lot of my suffering over the years has been as physical and not always emotional.  I have felt good this week calm even though work is slow.  I have done a few things this week to stack the cards in my favor.  First I have cut back on sugar and carbs.  I have exercised in some manner each day - jumping rope and yoga at home. I have been eating giant salads - I have been working on a large charcoal portrait (my meditation)  and last but not least I did go to a meeting on Monday.

I am a thinker and I have always thought I could think myself healthy. In the program they say "my best thinking got me here".  I appreciate my mind and it has served me well in some areas but I think it is time to focus on the whole body, mind and spirit.

I have to admit I have been taken care of in my life.  In some magical way no matter what God for me has worked things out. I have always been afraid to relax and enjoy this always thinking I should be preparing for future disasters. I have experienced many disasters but not the ones I prepared for so I still wasn't ready. This kept me from enjoying each day and the joy it had to offer.

We all want to feel safe like the one in the movie.  I am sure it did work out for her in the end.  I don't really know since I didn't watch it.  Feeling safe comes when you look back and see no matter how bad things got that you are still here.  That somehow things did work out.  Not the way I imagined but I am still here and still have the opportunity not to waste one more day just tolerating life. I can to trust that there is a net below the high wire.

Sabbatical - One day at a time

The word sabbatical came from the Jewish idea of the sabbatical year. When the fields were left fallow every seven years. A rest. I also pertains to those who observe the sabbath as a day of rest and worship.  This came to me while sitting on my porch this morning trying to decide whether I had to work today or not.

I have been off the past three days because of the holiday we were closed. Normally I would have worked this weekend and been off today if I so desired. I could work. I can always work I have the kind of job where you have imaginary customers until they sign so you are always working on jobs you may never get.

This makes me have judgements about myself and wonder why some jobs I get and some I don't. When I am spiritually where I want to be I just accept that all I can do is be myself and accept what comes my way. I do my best and so far it has worked out for me.

The idea of a sabbatical seems very appealing. I think today most people associate it with professors taking a sabbatical from teaching for research and travel. The dictionary said paid but it is an old dictionary.  I am not sure how many people get paid sabbaticals these days.

This morning I was questioning the past three days of doing nothing. It wasn't exactly nothing but close to it I did go out to small music jam fest yesterday for a couple of hours. I was close to 90 degrees and 100% humidity so not exactly pleasant. Our sketch group was meeting there to sketch the musicians.

Afterword a couple of us went to Chili's for dinner. The power went out and our order was lost and my food arrived cold two hours later we finished dinner. I took it all in stride and they took my meal off the bill. I felt that going out was a mistake after all.

I wasn't inspired this weekend to do anything. I was going to work on my house but the urge passed and here I am today deciding not to go to the office.

The idea of a sabbatical sounds about right to me. I thought when the idea popped up in my mind that it was interesting that it was every 7 years. I have been here 7 years and it has been seven years since the life I knew ended abruptly.

Just for today (ok it has been 4 days) I am going to do what I want and not worry about the imaginary consequences.

Heading in the right direction

Tonights Model in Pastels

I had an easy day today I didn't have to be at work too early and left on time for my drawing class.  I was pretty tired today after my weekend Sunday and Monday.

After a weekend of laying flooring I felt pretty sore I am out of shape. With the new job I have been too busy and stressed to think about eating right or exercising.This crazy time reminds me of when I was working and going to school to get my design degree.

I have put on a few pounds but have decided to give myself a little time adjust to the changes I am going through before forcing myself into some unnatural regimen. The weight is the result of my life being unbalanced and treating the symptom won't help. In time I will find the balance.

Work is already getting easier for me. A friend said to me recently that if you let go your mind will come up with a natural rhythm for getting things done efficiently. I know that is true but I am impatient with my own progress.

On my best days, like today, I believe that most of the time life is flowing in the right direction am when I have the courage to take my paddle out of the water I can trust that I will arrive at my desired destination just in time. The ride won't always be smooth and sometimes it might be lonely but I can always trust that I am always headed in the right direction.

Whacked upside the head - Wearing rose colored glasses

When you always do what you have always done you always get what you always got.  This is what I learned when I first came to the program. I am not sure if it is technically a slogan or not but it is true.

The thought for today is that I see people through rose colored glasses. I stay too long and expect too much from the people in my life. Then I am shocked when the do something totally out of character or even sometimes when they do something totally in character. It is me, they haven't changed I just didn't want to see the way the really were.

My story has been that I trust too much.  It is true but I am not planning to change. In the end it is mostly my feelings that get hurt. Somehow the material and financial part of my life is protected.  I choose to think of this as a God thing.  I always learn a lot.

I can't go around suspicious and bracing myself to be screwed over at any moment. That is no way to live. It is no way to live thinking everyone is devious and can't be trusted. It is too much work you get hurt eventually when people are involved.

If you want complete love and trust, get a dog. If you want to learn you got to put yourself out there. You got to take a chance that you get more good than bad out of any relationship.

I have few regrets about my life especially around trusting people. You can watch them every minute and still get whacked upside the head when you least expect it. You can choose to be the whacker instead, which sometimes I think might be healthier, but it just isn't my style.

Can a leopard change it spots? - Harmony

We have had situation come up where someone we work with has betrayed our trust.

We have known him a really long time and our company had stopped using him because he has an ego the size of Texas and if he has a mind to he will throw you under the bus in a heart beat. All is fair in love and making a buck.

Why would we start up with him. He has a good product and is close by and with the past 12 months being so bad it seemed like a good idea to mend that fence. He was really humble at that point but now that business is better he is feeling a little more like his old self.

I was tossing and turning over the situation last night. I had a meeting with him this morning on a job we previously committed to and was planning to bring up the issue. He doesn't know that we know. It didn't happen which is just as well I think I need more time to meditate on this problem.

In my angst last night I pulled out my Angel cards and the first card was Harmony. The passage was try to see a troubled situation from a higher place. I thought I am really PO'd and not feeling too high minded at this point.

During my all night reflection I woke up with two thoughts about the situation. First I can't really let it go because that is too much like all the years of being silent in my relationships. Accepting unacceptable behavior. I can say it without being mean, I can be truthful that if he doesn't own up to what is going then it will affect our relationship. That will be the consequences of breaching our trust.

The second thought is that I believe that everything comes back that you put out. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. You could call it karma. It isn't my place to pass judgement only to address how it affect me. If I accept unacceptable behavior then that is my decision.

Is it possible for a leopard to change his spots? I think it is I have changed mine many times. I also think our core characteristics regularly pull us back to, in some cases, not so great behavior. That is why we continue to take personal inventory to make sure we don't go back to where we started.

Trusting myself - Commitment Phobe

Tomorrow is the big the day when the business gets signed over to us. Maybe. It all depends on whether the owner agrees to the terms. I feel both excited and terrified at the same time.

Granted I have prepared a resume to hunt for a new job in an old career but I am moving forward with this at the same time. The uncertainty I see in everything is a reflection on my own inner inability to commit.

I have a hard time with commitment because once I am in it might be decades before I resurface. This is my story if I choose to believe it. So I am straddling the fence per say while moving forward at the same time.

I know myself well enough to see that I am pretending not to commit leaving the door open so I can run off at any moment. Have I ever done that planned an escape route or ran off. Nope not ever.

I have documents in a folder with my name on a new corporation. Scary stuff that sounds like commitment to me. I am still pretending.

I keep thinking that if I am not suppose to do this he will not sign those papers tomorrow. I am trusting in God and my own process for working through this and I will listen carefully to my gut tomorrow.

I want to be free and if we can make a success of this business I will have freedom. If I don't focus on all the things that could go wrong or the mountain of obstacles my mind has made up this could actually be fun and exciting.

I will keep you posted.

Hey does anyone know how to remove the underlines that suddenly showed up on my blog.

Bad dreams - Staying on the path to peace

The other night I realized I was dreaming. I woke myself up sobbing in my sleep. I didn't really remember why I was sobbing but it seemed like a deep sadness.

My life is stressful not in the oh my God I got so much to do way but more in the oh my God what is going to happen to me way? How am I going to survive? I know no matter how I seem in the waking world my inner world isn't buying it.

I use to create a lot of stress for myself by overbooking and being all dramatic about my to do list. Then I realized it was my list and if I wanted to have less stress I could put less on the list. I figured out that being so booked made me feel important and more valuable to myself and others.

Today I live a pretty simple life and float above the chaos that was once part of my own existence. Everything use to go on the really important list. Everything was life or death for me. It created the drama that I had become accustomed to from childhood it felt like home.

Over time I have found that not many things fall into that category for me anymore. I enjoy living this way until someone tells me what I should be doing or I look around and everyone seems so busy doing nothing. I panic momentarily and my trust in God goes out the window. I have nightmares in my sleep I am terrified that I have let go and something bad will happen if I don't take the control back.

It doesn't last for long. I lived the first 30 years of my life dependant only on myself. I was miserable and my life was going no where. I was busy for sure but it wasn't satisfying and certainly not joyful. I was on to the next thing and never really savored any moment. I lost big chucks of time this way I think that is the point. When your unhappy you got to keep moving or your emotions catch up with you.

I am back to being peaceful and trusting that all will be revealed. This week I am taking care of the little things. It feels life I am preparing for a long trip of some kind. I am ready to let go now and move forward in whatever direction I am led. A calmness has set in and I know I am not on this path alone.

Opinions - Everyone has one

I have to remember I am right where I am suppose to be. Even if it feels unnatural to let go when everyone around me has an opinion about what I should be doing.

My sister gave me an ear full last night about getting my resume together and getting out of my job situation. Today we went to a lawyer to draw up the papers to get me into the situation my sister thinks I should be running from.

This afternoon I met with my retirement planner and he said I have wasted a year of my life keeping a business open that wasn't mine. I said it was necessary to get me where I am today. He said that that was just an excuse and the road blocks were just in my mind.

Meanwhile back at the bat cave the boy wonder, my cousin, was leaving me nasty messages saying he hated me and is glad the my husband Bob left me 20 years ago. He wants from his trust and I won't authorize it. Sticks and stones...

What is it they say about opinions? This is a long way from the beautiful Manatees I visited on Monday. Beautiful is a lose term when it comes to Manatees they look kind of like slugs with faces and a tail.

I am content in letting go even if no one thinks I know what I am doing. I do really.

One thing I know a lot about and that is me. I know how my mind works and the emotional process I have to go through to make decisions. I might take longer than others but when I reach a conclusion I will rise to the occasion and kick some butt.

I am floating today somewhere between trusting myself and God and the opinions of others. I feel pretty good actually and I will come out ahead, I always do.

According to the Chinese horoscope I am a Tiger and regularly wait in the brush until I am ready to ponce or sometimes I might fall asleep and miss the whole thing.

We shall see.

I woke up with fear - yogi talk

This morning I woke up with a sense of dread. Nothing I could really put my finger on exactly but there it was. I put on some music and said some prayers while getting dressed.

I tried to analyze if it was tied to any particular thoughts. The only thing I could think of was that things are going well for the first time in a long time and can I trust that.

In the last five minutes I just lost a job. The good news is they are going to pay me for the time I put into it and that would be equal to my commission. No money for the company though.

Changing the subject I went a gathering last night that included a yogi. He had a lot of wisdom and it seemed he repeated some of the very ideas I have been harping on here.

He said that all addiction is created by stress. That is not a big surprise is it? He also said that we try to balance the stress by using drugs or food or whatever we can to counter act the stress. He said finding balance in ones life was the only way to fight addiction. The imbalance is in our minds and the only way to get rid of it is to live in the present moment.

I am not a worshipper of men. I feel we are all equal and equally fallible. He has a pretty sweet life with people waiting on him 24/7. It is a good gig if you can get it. Someone did ask him who gave him his title of yogi and he said he gave it to himself. He also said he wrote a 12 step book from his perspective 40 years ago.

With that last sentence I thought, does he have personal experience with the 12 steps? It wasn't as well known 40 years ago as it is now and it doesn't really matter. He had some words of wisdom and as always take what you like and leave the rest.

Love Fest - Being Enough

So I have just returned from a love fest next door. The two dogs I am taking care of, in my neighbors absence, decided that tonight they were initiating me into the family and proceeded to lick me simultaneously while I sat in one of the three easy boy chairs in the living room (no couch).

I might have mentioned before one is a German Shepard named Willow that was rescued from and abusive home and is skiddish. That is actually an understatement, while she was drinking water in the kitchen she would come out periodically to check to see if I was still sitting in the chair. She then felt secure enough to drink and repeat the whole process. She has been on many hunger strikes in the absence of her usual pack. The other dog is your average I like anybody dog. I felt very honored to get such affection from a usually distant dog.

The last sentence speaks volumes about who I am at the core. Dogs or humans gaining the trust of those that don't trust easily, makes me feel special. I can admit that only after spending a lifetime choosing this type of relationship. Maybe it is just a mirror of myself the wounded part or maybe it is enough to go where no one has gone before. I have found it is a trap for me and once I am in I can't get out. My issues with loyalty and abandonment would never hurt someone the way I have been hurt.

I never leave even if the red lights are flashing and sirens are going off it isn't enough. I am loyal to the death in my case a spiritual death. When I find myself there I look in the mirror and see a complete stranger. I can remember my first counselor telling me she thought I would have eventually left my husband, she was wrong. I would have remained a zombie waiting for something to change.

Luckily for me those that let you in can shut the door a lot more quickly than it opened and once shut it is over. I have stood there outside that door more times than I want to admit, thinking of ways to get back in. Obessing really, let me get my list out.

I am making light of a life long reoccurring nightmare and I can do that because I finally get it. I like the challenge earning that trust and feeling special being on the inside but in the end everyone has to save themselves. I was never willing to save myself. I thought it was more important to save the other person. Here in lies the problem, who is going to save me?

My sponsor always said my picker was broken and she was right. It all comes down to still looking outside myself for validation and to feel like I was enough. Being enough for myself, I can make better choices in relationships.

Tonight I know I am special because I am loved by the 100 lb German Shepard next door and I am enough.

Walking the Line - Trusting the Process

I have been walking the line between the past and the present over the last couple of weeks and I am not sure where I stand at the moment and wonder does it really matter. Trusting that everything is in perfect order can be a real stretch when you want something to turn out the way you picture it in your mind.

I know what I want or do I even know what I want and again, does it really matter. Step three, made a decision to turn our will and lives over to the care of God as we understand him, seems pretty easy if you put it that way but in practice the ability to let something go depends on how important the outcome is to you.

This is where I lose it. Have I done everything I can do without God's help? I can feel my heart aching for things to go my way and the my mind saying this situation is impossible and will never work. Don't get your hopes up verses expect a miracle. So which way do I go?

Before the program I felt I had all of the control and none of the control over my life. What I found out is that both are true, but the things I thought I had control over I didn't and things I thought I didn't I really did. I have control over my own thinking this was a big surprise to me. I can choose to let my thoughts ruin my day or know that they are just thoughts and I can be crazy another day.

The things I thought I could control, just about everything else, I had absolutely no power over. People just went out and did what ever they wanted without even getting my opinion. Couldn't they see the mistakes they were making?

So here I am back to the beginning, having to let things go and turning my will over. The truth is I don't know what is ultimately best for me. When I look at God's track record in my life, I can see a lot of successful decisions he has made for me. I can't take credit for any of the really great things that have happen to me because they were a result of some painful things that happened in my life. Things I would have never willing chosen to go through myself.

I will let go today and decide again tomorrow. Walking the line makes me feel anxious and powerless and I can make a decision be happy today, if I let go and trust the process.

Can I trust myself?

It seems that sometimes I am last to know my true feelings. I have been blindsided time and time again by my own emotions. My mind says every things fine, you doing great, not obsessing content maybe even happy and then boom out of left field I am overtaken by sadness, depression and even love.

In relationships I am always the last to recognize the attraction or even the distance that has taken place. Why is that, am I so out of touch with myself that I don't notice or am I in my head most of the time and my heart is doing it's on thing.

I have set up a meeting with someone that I loved and lost. The timing was bad and it would have never worked. So we are meeting again for the first time since the drama has passed and we are both in different places.

It is my nature to analyze and process something until every nook and cranny has been analyzed. It is my way. It is my brain that does this, I can't be done until I am done. I can't be free to move on until I have completed this cycle.

So do I think there is hope, maybe. Does it really matter at this point, maybe. Can I accept the outcome no matter what, maybe. Do I have expectations, maybe.

The bottom line is I feel good about this and I think I need this to move on but, I don't trust myself.

The Forest For The Trees

I a taking a break from my day here at work to do a little writing. Writing calms my nerves and I have felt really scattered today with everyone in the office. We work independently but when we are all here somehow decisions we would make on our own are brought up for discussion.

It is good to get feed back but it is a real time sucker and it breaks my concentration. My job requires a lot of focus in the beginning and if I make a mistake I won't know until the project starts months from now. So I usually wait until I am focused to tackle the big stuff but lately it seem that that time never comes and the days are slipping by and this makes me anxious.

What I have learned over the years is to is to trust myself I wouldn't put something off if somewhere in the back of my mind I thought I could. Even when I was at my lowest the customer never suffered and I never missed a deadline. So I have to trust the process and my higher power that the pieces will fall together and even if they don't it will be OK.

Tonight is the dinner with my ex-boss, I am feeling calm and I am looking forward to seeing her an her husband. So even if my day is full of trees I can sit back and imagine the forest and start again tomorrow.

Peace-Step Three

Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.

Making a decision to turn my will over is a daily act for me. When fear takes over and sabotages any thoughts of positive outcomes I have to reel myself back in and realize I am not in charge. This comes as a daily shock for my ego. It is only after we wrestle to the ground that my spirit emerges victorious. Sometimes my ego wins when I can’t get past the long list of reasons why things will never work out.

As humans we are a sum total of every word and action we have experienced our whole life. What we choose to continue to believe is the stuff we have reinforced with our own inner voice. What we have repeated over and over until it is our truth. I have come to realize lately that I have a choice to interrupt this recording in my head and believe that the possibilities are limitless. Trusting in a power greater than myself I can move past the fear and know that everything will work out.

Breaking the Rules

Today while driving to work I got behind the recycle truck on a single lane road and they were stopping every few minutes and it was too busy to pass so I waited. It reminded me of a time I was in a car with someone when the same thing happened and I went around. He couldn’t believe that I was passing on a double line and breaking the rules. It was a slow morning and perfectly safe and besides the road we were on had about 50 houses on it we would have been there for hours.

This reminded me of how rigid I was before I started the recovery process. How I wouldn’t trust my own judgment or think outside the box. With the program everything is suggested and this leaves a lot to interpretation and that can be scary in the beginning. We want to be safe and be sure that every decision we make is the right one and that is impossible. Sometimes we are going to be right and sometimes things will not turn out as we expected. Making choices for ourselves is part of our growth and realizing that we always do our best is all we can do. Taking responsibility for our own lives can bring back the insecurities of the past and the mistakes we have made but we are more equipped now to do what is right for us and accept the outcome.

So today I waited for the recycle truck to pick up a few loads and it gave me time to think about writing today so it was the right choice for me today. Rules are for our protection and can’t always cover every possible scenario so I have to use my own judgment and trust that I am capable of making the right choices for me today.