Change - transformation - design

I have been transforming my house. This is what I do when I want things to be different.  I figure changing my space will help to make things fresher and it really works.  I started doing this when I was old enough to sit on the floor and lean against a wall and push my twin beds to their new location.

My mother didn't seem to mind that about every month I re-arrange my small bedroom. I had two twin beds a dresser, night stand and a small desk.  Given that my room was only 10 x 10 I really had to get creative.  The walls were covered with posters, drawings and anything I wanted.  One time I made spirals from paper and covered the ceiling. My daddy wasn't too pleased with all that scotch tape.

Towards the end of my mothers sickness she decided that we needed to properly makeover our bedrooms.  We picked out our color scheme and we would get new carpet, drapes, paint and bed spreads. This was strange for our family since we really didn't ever buy anything new.

I thought long and hard about this because I didn't like things to be the same especially in my room. I settled on a Holly Hobby theme.  Hot pink and lime green would be the color scheme. Holly wore a little lime green bonnet and it matched my lime green carpet perfectly.

I have had a lot of time off this holiday and I have had to fight the stories in my head about how I got to where I am today. I am alone but I feel okay unless I think of how things could be different if I had made other choices but I didn't and here I am. I don't think this way except during the holidays. No one gets the perfect life like those Hallmark movies.  My mother certainly didn't.

I know now that she was preparing for her departure and wanted things to be as nice as possible for all of us. She picked red carpet for their room and my sister picked blue. I can see those little rooms in that house and the happiness and sadness we all experience there.

I she was here now she would roll her eyes seeing my house turned upside down.  She would say "nothing ever changes". 

Family - Our original tribe - War

It has been proven scientifically that when you spend time with a person or group of people that your brain chemistry starts to change to match each other while you are together.  This is why when people gather in large groups who already have similar ideas about things can be powerful.  This is why religions through out history called people to come together as an act of commitment to their beliefs..

Even in smaller groups we take on the outlook of the people we are traveling with through life.  The day to day similarity makes us feel like we belong to something our tribe. It isn't acceptable for someone with different ideas to join unless they are planning to assimilate.  There is strength in numbers and if someone doesn't get on board they will be pushed out.

I was listening to an interview with Byron Katey yesterday. For me she really has the answer to mental suffering and it is pretty simple. But that is a different post.  Yesterday she said "when you think someone is wrong it it just because they do not agree with you."  This assumes we are somehow superior in our own beliefs and ideas. She calls this "war".

During the holidays some people end up spending a lot of time with there family. This is when our differences tend to come up.  These people might be our original tribe but now we have moved on and found our own tribe in our everyday life. It makes us feel unsettled that the people we spent our early years with are not like us and and we want to take this one day to try to change them.

With my own family they live in a different world than I do.  Do I think they are wrong? I think they mean well and are passionate about their own beliefs and it is not my responsibility to convert them to mine. If I am pressed I am happy to let them know my own beliefs.

On my recent visit I saw a lot of pain and suffering mostly caused by fear.  Fear of crime and all those people out to get them. Ironically they all live way out in the middle of no where and the likelihood of any of those things happening to them is remote. The mind is always looking for something to do and leans towards fear and negativity.

When I am with my family I imagine that  my own presence of love and acceptance will have an influence on them. It is hard see them suffering but I understand it because I have suffered myself.

Let's face it we all live alone in our heads or with those nasty characters we have created to live with us.  We don't know what is in some one's head or heart we can only bring love and acceptance to the table and be the strong force that makes an impression. This is better than war.

I am spending Christmas alone and happy this year.  I can make a big deal about this or I can enjoy my solitude and know that I am loved from a distance by my original tribe. I have learned how to let myself be happy where ever I am. Merry Christmas.

"I am enough" - short cut to happiness

I have spent a life time wallowing in my own recovery.  I know it had to be done so I don't fault myself but I feel I have missed a lot during my suffering.  My desire is to somehow help other people take a short cut to finding healing for emotional trauma.

I think it is important to know where you come from and whose words shaped you into the person you are today.  Sometimes it isn't words it is maybe a look or in my case a lack of interest in me at all. As kids we take this stuff in and we believe it because it is our only experience.  We think it is true because it was one on the first things imprinted in our little minds.

To find happiness for myself I have had to look a my own thoughts and the phrases I say to myself to find out what opinions I have of myself that hurt me.  At first  I had to stop the negative comments I constantly made to myself.  I had to make friends with the woman in the mirror.

That was a good start and gave me a lot of peace in my life but I still felt like something was missing.  I knew there was more because sometimes I would feel sad and lonely and words of blame would surface.  I would go over everything that brought me to the place I am today.  All the mistakes I made and the people I trusted with my heart.

What I have realized this past year is that I can't change the past but I can stop blaming myself for where I am today.  I am only suffering because I chose to feel the weight of not only my choices but the choices of every other person in my life.  Life is messy and people are messed up.  We want to fix the past so we stay there too much.

I don't believe that regurgitating our past does anything to heal us. It is a bad habit that must be broken to move on. It is narcissism at its best and will keep us from finding happiness with where we are today. We can identify the beliefs we created from those events but then let them go. We are no longer experiencing them unless we relive them in our minds. It is a story and telling our story over and over gives it power over us. We are not our story unless we want to be.

I have been lost for a long time believing that I was somehow "not good enough" and this was why I didn't find the life I imagined I would.  But really it is this believe that kept me from enjoying the times in my life that were really wonderful. I wasn't emotionally engaged and surrounded myself with people just like me. It was where I was comfortable being invisible lost in my own painful thought.

I have had a good life and even though sometimes I wish it was more like a Hallmark movie - who doesn't?  I am thankful that I am healthy and my mind is good and I have a job that I love. I know now that I can decide to enjoy the day and not wish for something more.

Panic - Flow - Spiritual Awakening

I was planning on writing yesterday but had a little scare with my computer.  It crashed and wouldn't even turn back on.  I jumped into action and got dressed and drove to the Best Buy like a maniac.  When I got there the guy said well if it won't turn on then there is no hope.  He proceeded to plug it in and like magic it came on as if nothing was wrong with it.

I felt relieved of course but decided to start moving my stuff to another computer which took most of the day.  I have had that one so long that a few of the keys have stopped working but did that stop me? No.  I just bought a wireless key board. Why do something now when you can wait for a crisis to motivate you into a quick action.

I have to admit that I deleted a ton of stuff yesterday mostly pictured from hundreds of jobs I have done over the past 10 years.  It felt sad but liberating to purge the past. The only jobs on that computer were before the place I am working now. 

It did give me time to wallow in my personal photo past too.  Looking at the people who are no longer part of my life and letting that go again. Sometimes you are just there and you have to it ride out.  I was in a funk the rest of the day with my to do list left untouched feeling flat.

I woke up today feeling like a new person.  I watched Joel and his message was inspiring. He said once we ask for forgiveness the slate is clean. There is no need to mull over our past even to ourselves.  Rehashing the mistakes we made is something that we do to punish ourselves.  It isn't loving and kind to ourselves we need to move on and let go.

It was what I needed today because sometimes when I am alone I think "how did i get here?" and I want to blame myself for bad decisions I have made.  

I have done my best and I am alone because other people decided to move on and I was left behind.  Also I have decided to move on and left other people behind too. Sometimes holding on to something that doesn't work because it is better than nothing isn't good for anyone.

I had an spiritual awakening today with my own tears and forgiveness. In my mine I kept hearing "remember the date"  I wasn't sure what that was about until I remember that today is my mother's birthday.  I am sure she was smiling and consoling me through my tears. 

I have had a life that has dealt me some blows but I feel grateful that I am from sturdy spiritual stock and that I have chosen to search for strength through the pain.  I do believe that if you are open to it you can have a life that is divinely guided and you move with flow instead of against it.