Embers - Home Alone - God Box

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I had a busy week full of people last week and for an introvert this can really be draining so I stayed home alone yesterday to give my batteries a charge. Not one word spoken to anyone from Saturday night until this morning.

I can's say it wasn't a little challenging come Sunday night.  In fact Saturday night I thought I could veg in front of the TV but I couldn't. Too many years of being depressed and immobile makes doing that less appealing these days.

I got up and decided to do some mindful chores. While dusting I discovered my God Box it isn't really a God Box because it is a gourd taped shut. For those who don't know what a God Box is it is a box that you put problems or desires into representing turning them over to a higher power.

A real God Box can't be opened. Once you write you problem or desire on a piece of paper you put it in the box and you can't take it back. I have one that a wood working friend gave me but I had already started using the gourd.

Of course I opened it and read the tiny slips of paper. When I read them I thought back on how desperate I had been during those times. How everything I thought would be permanent in my life was ripped away. I met someone during that time who I thought might save me from the tidal wave of emotion heading my way, but it wasn't meant to be the timing was bad and I was crazy and crazy attracts crazy at least that is my experience.

I am not that person anymore. When I saw a friend of mine that is a spiritual healer a few weeks ago and she took one look at me and said you are empty and have rid yourself of your past. I already knew this. I have moved on in so many ways. I feel good unless I start wondering what to do with the rest of my life. I have spent so much of my life recovering from my past it feels strange to let that go.

I always thought I needed to remember where I have been but keeping the memories kept the pain alive. The hurt child is all grown up realizing that I was the one still torturing myself. When I think about the person I use to be it feels like my old relationships like they never happened some distant dream involving strangers.

I decided to burn those pieces of paper with my problems and even the ones with my dreams. I don't have the same dreams anymore. One by one they turned into little tiny glowing embers setting me free from the past and opening my life up for something more.

Never compromise - Cleaning my room

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I find more and more that the problems I have come from the child in me that does want to accept that I have to take care of myself. With every step I feel like I am growing up and really seeing how thinking as a child has really kept me from living life more joyously.

The minute I see through my immaturity I start to feel better.  When I was a kid I would clean my room from time to time without being asked and then I would go get my mother and show it to her. I would want her to say how great it look and what a great kid I was for doing it.

That is what I have been wanting all my adult life. I wanted someone to tell me what a great job I have done and  then I could translate that into that I am valuable.  I have earned my place in this world.

Does everyone feel that way? Most of the time I know when I have done a good job but the kid in me has doubts. I hear "what if you are screwed up?" "what if it is your fault?" "what if you aren't as good as you think you are?"  Then doubts creep in and I try to get other people to fill in the blanks. Reassure me that I am lovable.

Putting the child in me at ease is a full time job. I think about what my mother my might say to me if she was here.  She would be kind and reassuring and say your perfect the way God made you. Do your best and let God do the rest. ( maybe that is from the program)

I don't really remember what she said about my room. She probably said it looked nice. She would probably say that is MY room and I had to live in it so I should want to clean it for myself.  Really.

My mom in all her holiness was a pretty progressive thinker. She really never cared that much about my room unless it started spilling out into the hall. I was allowed to do whatever I wanted with my room and when company came she would just close the door. My door was closed a lot.

She gave me a lot in 11 short years and died February 15th 1974. An anniversary that just passed. She gave my sister and I some serious talks about being independent and being true to ourselves. Never count on a man she would say even though my dad was the most reliable man on earth. Maybe she knew she wasn't long for this world and wanted us to never have to compromise in life in order to survive.

I am amazed that with each day I am learning how to fly higher and higher and never compromise even if occasionally I have to hit the pavement.

Resolution - I have to be my own cheerleader

I woke up this morning sad. I can't seem to get past this issue with my friend and this morning I realized that it is my own need to be liked that is at the heart of the situation. I am mostly not a people pleaser  and most of my friends would agree. 

I know that it hurts because this friend had high regards for me. She was my biggest fan with my work. She always boosted me up and told me how great my designs were and she understood what goes on in this industry. The child in me really liked that.

It was great having that kind of support and now she is gone. So it is about me once again. It is about a pattern I have for people thinking I am great and then somehow I fall from grace.

Just like my ex's it feels as if I have done something to deserve being left. I want to fix it I want to explain how wrong she is for whatever she is thinking about me. Since I really don't know what she is thinking. 

The lesson is that I have to be my own cheerleader once again. I can't let someone not liking me make me doubt myself. I always do my best and if I make a mistake I admit it. In this case the crime does not justify the punishment. 

The pain I have felt over this is probably because I am reliving being left without any real explanation. This life on a pedestal can be tricky. You didn't put yourself there and when you get knocked off it doesn't have anything to do with you. The incident is usually to justify cutting you out of their lives for whatever reason. 

My friend is going through a tough time and like me she is more comfortable handling everything on her own. It makes her feel weak to reach out or have support. The program taught me that I was never alone unless I wanted to be.  

My friends in the program are always neutral without too many compliments or digs. But in the end you don't get the rug pulled out from under you. 

I think my analytical mind can finally let this go now since I have found out what this is really about for me. 

Restoration - Letting go

I didn't sleep well last night the events of the day with my friend kept waking me up.  It wasn't like we spoke with the world of email and text you can have an entire relationship without so much as one spoken word.

I am old school with my need for direct contact with people. The tone of a voice can say so much more than words on a screen. With email sometimes it seem like someone is screaming especially if they like to us caps for righting.

In my sleepless night last I turned on my favorite preacher. I have them all recorded and I just pick one at random and it usually fits my current state of mind. The message was restoration.

He said to ask God to restore what has be lost. He said God doesn't care whose fault it is and can miraculously restore anything no matter how remote of a possibility it is at this point.

My life is being restored right now without my help. It made me realize how it isn't my responsibility to do the restoration if I can just see that.

He said to think past my own capabilities because if we could do everything ourselves then why would we need God.

My life needs to change. I can't live the way I have been living with all this anxiety about supporting myself.

Luckily the economy is better and things are picking up. People that I haven't heard from in a long time are calling me back.

When I was younger it seemed easier to let go and let god. I don't know why maybe I was just too busy to think much about the future and figured I had plenty of time to get things right.

So today I am just thinking restoration. Restoring myself to a healthier spiritual place.

No strings attached - Death of a friendship

I lost a friend today. I knew it was coming but I wasn't prepared fully. Friendship do die on occasion but usually a slow death and by the time it happens you hardly notice.

This is hard because I was blindsided and thought we would be friends forever.

My mind and heart want to make it my fault or at least try in some way to explain my side. But she isn't interested in anything I have to say right now.

I am beyond working so hard to be loved or liked. I do my best and accept the results. I admit when I have made a mistake but I can't be responsible for the feelings of others. The program says " what you think about me is none of my business". This use to make me really mad and I thought is was and excuse to not care about other people and their feelings.

I get it now I have to just be who I am and love people where they are whether they love me or even like me. Anything else has strings attached.

I believe everything is part of life's process and we all have to find our own way. We are being divinely guided and there are no mistakes.

Maybe I am not suppose to be with her right now. She is going through some serious personal stuff. Maybe she needs to be on her own like I did I don't really know and maybe I never will.

I feel like my life is really taking a different direction these days. I feel like the universe is severing the attachments I have to this town. Maybe I will be moving on soon.

I love her an will miss her. I wish her the best that this life has to offer.

Movies from the past and pressure cookers

I woke up this morning on the wrong side of the bed. I can't really put my finger on what is exactly going on so I thought I would take a moment and write.

Yesterday I was off and spent the day doing what I wanted. A little raking and little cleaning and then I watched an old movie that I found in a box of kitchen supplies stored upstairs. I was looking for the top of my pressure cooker.  You know that thing that shakes when the pressure is high. I didn't find it but there was the the movie.

The movie I purchase with my ex and we regularly watched it together. It made me cry to think how new love was then for us and how we believed we would always be together. We wanted so badly to think we could keep the fires going.  How our relationship would be special and beat the odds.

Do I believe that people can stay together forever? Yes I do but only if both people are mature enough to know a relationship is about two people that need room to grow and change. Is anyone the same after 10 or 20 years or even five years. It isn't the relationship that makes us whole we have to do this ourselves. The relationship does benefit from us making ourselves whole.

Both of my long term relationships ended. I use to say failed but that isn't true. They just ran their course. Ironically yesterday day was the anniversary of my first marriage too. Maybe it was just a pile up day for me. Maybe I have an emotional hang over today.

My friend is visiting and she is leaving the glowing phase of her own relationship. She is here without her husband and feeling free and happy to be on her own. He is feeling lonely and a little abandoned. He has been the total focus of her life for the past two years.

Her words this morning hurt me more than they should have. They sounded cold and unsympathetic to what he was feeling.

My ex's replaced me before they left. They were unsympathetic to my feelings too.  I accept now that this is how some people find the courage to end an already dying relationship. I am too loyal for that and I stay long after it is healthy for me. I prefer to be the victim and felt both times like I had been discarded after giving my all.

I have learned a lot about myself and my expectations. I have learned that giving my all is too much if I am expecting that in return.  I have to respect myself and my needs first and then tend to the relationship.

We merge in the beginning of every relationship and over time we become our individual selves again and this is when we have to redefine the relationship. This is when decisions have to be made.

I hope I didn't bum anyone out today. Writing has made me see that I was empathizing with my friend's husband and feeling a wave of pain from my past. I am grieving the death of a dream the dream that someone else out there can complete me. Only I can do that.