Making space work for me - Time out

I am spontaneously taking this week off. The timing is about as right as it is going to be with work and I have some big projects coming up at the end of the month. I am not going to try to see my family - they are not vaccinated and my other family is waiting for their booster shots before seeing anyone. After my recent exposure staying home seems reasonable to me. 

I like staying home and giving my life a little space. I deal in physical spaces every day in my business but this is space to regroup in my personal life.  As everyone has learned with the pandemic space can be awkward with time and no plan.  Even though I love being on my own I have to resist just filling my day with a to list.  For me after a day or so I began to relax and enjoy the freedom.

I am working daily on honing my drawing skills realizing that practicing and studying will eventually take me where I want to go. If  I use the 10,000 hour rule and practice one hour a day it will take about about four years to get where I want to go.  This does seem daunting but really what is one hour a day in the scheme of things.

I wrote down some goals or future intentions. I like putting my intentions on paper and it has worked for me past. I have found those list years later and seeing some of those intentions did come true. I am a visual person and I like to see the words.

I am inspired right now although it feels like things in the rest of my are shifting. I have prepared the best I can without a crystal ball so that is all I can do. I feel that even though I have been through a lot in my life that I have made it under extreme circumstances.

This week I will do whatever I feel inspired to do and if that is nothing that is okay too. We need time and space to step back and make decisions on what we want and it is hard to do that when we are just getting through each day.

With the pandemic a lot people are re-evaluating what is important and have gotten use to a different life and staying home with the people they love. We have be forced to reflect on our world and decide do we go back to the way things were or do we keep this quieter world we have found. Maybe we can combine both who know. 

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.

Paying Attention - Movies and more

I am having some serious problems with this blog. Nothing seems to be working. Maybe it is a sign but one I am will to ignore for today. The spell check isn't working either and it won't let me cut and paste so this could be interesting.

I have be in a slump the past few days. I can't really put my finger on it. It seems I am hitting obstacles with most of my customers. Can't get the final commitment it makes me nervous. It is all part of the business of sales and the emotional process of a big purchase.

With the business side of my life kind of leveling out I have had the energy to look at some of the last skeletons in my closet.

A week ago the Melissa Etheridge song "Letting Go" started playing in my head. I saw her on a late night show night before last. Then yesterday one of the self help blogs sent me a link to a movie with the titled "Letting Go" I am seeing this as the universe trying to tell me something.

The movie Letting Go was really a self help guru selling his method cure for life. It is a technique I am familiar with. Practicing not resisting emotions and letting them surface without judgement. I find that if I stop what I am doing I actually notice I am holding my breath.

The scary part about letting go for me is it doesn't leave much behind. Living in the moment is like floating around with nothing tethering you to anything. If your mind has nothing to focus on it tries to bring up the past. That is all it has is the past. Mistakes are especially interesting to squirrel about because there is no solution to past mistakes. How ironic that we use up so much energy repeating the same sad episode in our head over and over.

My mind gets particularly agitated when I actually do let go and uses another tactic the future it says " YOU should be worried, what if you don't get that job or any job ever again, what if you don't ever meet someone again and you die alone and nobody finds you for weeks." This of course is another

When I am balanced spiritually I can see how crazy these messages are and don't let them take me down. Other times when I am thinking of the past and the mistakes I feel I have made that brought me here I listen carefully to every negative word in my head.

I don't understand why sometimes I am so vulnerable to the voices. The truth this time is that I am looking at the mistakes I have made without the veil of grief and depression. I am older and wiser after my walk through the desert and I can see clearly my shortcomings.

I can see how in my last relationship I was lost in my head a lot. Just like I am now. I feel bad that I wasn't paying attention to the grand canyon that had come between us that last few years.

I went to see the movie Hope Spring Eternal it might have triggered some of my guilt about being in my own world. I don't blame myself totally there is two people in a relationship I am just saying the amount of time I spent in my head didn't help.

Life happens and you do your best even if you find out later it wasn't that great. All you can do is move forward and start over with more information.

I am glad I was able to write today and find the source of this emotional bump in the road.

Know yourself - Trying to find balance

I am tired today and still have a lot of work left to do before I go home. This week sped by and some parts were not too productive. I have to acknowledge that part of it is my own problem solving style that holds me back.

When I am tackling a project that has too many parts and pieces and no way to streamline the process my brain gets fried and I get stuck in one place too long. I usually try to tuck something else in the middle of the task for relief or wait until I am feeling more capable. This week none of that worked.

I kept moving forward and after spending a day sorting out plumbing for a customers bathroom I found out what we thought would work wouldn't. I had to start the whole selection process over again. If I could I would delegate this to someone else.

I really felt stressed because I knew the customer was waiting for me and it is taking me too long. I am pretty patient with other peoples personalty quirks but with my own I never meet my own standards.

This whole stuck in the quagmire happens a lot when I am over loaded. I feel bad because I can't meet every one's expectations. It isn't good to disappoint when you work on commission.

I finished the above project this morning and sent it off in email. It took me too long and I might have lost the job but I did my best even if it wasn't good enough.

Knowing myself and accepting that everything does work out helps sooth me when I feel that I am not working too efficiently.

I worked six days this week which is part of the problem. I am planning on being off Sunday and Monday even if I will be further behind. I am trying to find some balance.

Not so cheery today. Hope everyone is enjoying the early spring it is finally raining here and that does make me happy.

Taking a beating - Have we learned anything?

Both in life and in business when times are tough people pull together to weather the storm when the storm passes and crisis is over things inevitably go back to the way they were unless we make an effort to learn from the past.

The ego steps in and we start to look after ourselves. It is human nature. This is what I am experiencing here with the guy in our building. He is slammed busy and feeling a little less generous or open to building a relationship.

We did talk and I could see that he he felt perfectly justified in stepping in and offering to build the cabinets and cut the price. He is right it was his customer and he could do as he pleased. I just thought if he had called me we could have worked together to reduce price.

I want to build something together a partnership with us making decisions together. They're some big egos in this business and they have taken a beating over the past few years. Have we learned anything? I know I have and I will move on if I need to.

It feels good to have a break in the storm where it seems things are returning to normal. What ever that is. But it is not a time to rest but a time to focus on getting our house in order. Preparing for the ebb an flow of this industry and of life in general.

You never know when the next lesson will arrive. It is possible that this could be the eye of the storm.

Treating people with respect all the time even when it isn't easy but it is always the right thing to do. I respect his decision to do what he thought he had to do to save the job. Even if that meant throwing me under the bus. I am over it now.

Can I really let go?

It has been a week of emotional turmoil. My business partner and I had a blowout. She left and then returned and started yelling at me and stormed out for the day.

I don't react to this kind of behavior and was really pretty shocked. I have seen it before but not directed towards me. She did send me an email later in the day apologizing for the outburst but making sure that I knew she was right. Maybe she was but by that time that wasn't really the point.

We have both taken a step back and are looking at whether we can be partners. I can see myself in her 20 years ago always pushing my agenda and feeling like a victim everybody against me. I couldn't trust anyone and everyone was dumping on me. That still happens but only if I let it. Back then I couldn't detach long enough to see the situation from any ones perspective but my own. Reacting, fight or flight.

I am slower to come to my conclusions now and probably try too hard to see it from the other persons side. We are the way we are because it works for us or it did work at some point so we keep using it. This is what the program taught me and then it taught me that I could let go of behaviors that no longer work for me.

Do I want to sign up for this kind of very familiar relationship? The day to day drama of not knowing who is walking in the door. I am dealing with my past here resurfacing once again. God asking me, do you want this lesson one more time? Can I choose myself this time?

I had a dream of us building something together but that faded somewhat this week. This will never be about what works for us only what works for her. Eyes wide open this time. I don't expect people to change for me anymore I just have to decide if I can live with them the way they are.

I can feel that familiar feeling of wanting someone else to be different than they are. Trying to salvage my vision of what I thought the future would look like. Sugar coating what will clearly be a problem for me sooner or later.

This is the real issue here. I can only see my dream coming true one way. I am limiting the possibilities for making this happen any other way. Awareness is the first step to letting go and I think I am ready.

With a higher view I see I am limiting God's ability to provide me with something even better than this. I don't have to take the same path again if I choose not to.

I am not moving too quickly all will be revealed. I am alone here today which is a relief and that will give me time to work on my ducks.

Tenacious - Not readily letting go

Definition of Tenacious - Character defect or asset?

te·na·cious/təˈnāSHəs/Adjective

1. Not readily letting go of, giving up, or separated from an object that one holds, a position, or a principle: "a tenacious grip".

2. Not easily dispelled or discouraged; persisting in existence or in a course of action: "a tenacious legend".

I am tenacious. It is usually in the manner of the first definition that gets me in trouble and the manner of the second that makes things happen in my life.

If I do the first and then move on to the second I am home free. This is where the perils lie when I am looking at the second when I am still clearly stuck in the first.

A lot is happening and nothing is happening at work. Doors keep closing and I am seeing the future from a higher view these days. I am ready to move on from a place of longing for the past. It served me well because it brought me to where I am today but it is the past nevertheless.

I am writing in riddles today because I feel like for the first time I don't need to be the glue that holds things together and I can let go. The need to make something work that from my new found vantage point is clearly broken. The players on the team are not team players and my time here is just about over.

So what is next? I don't know but I do know that I have moved on from feeling responsible for the business. I feel lighter and happier for the moment and this is what I needed today.

Extremes = Love and Marriage

I wasn't going to write about love for Valentines but it seems I can't help myself. In my marriage we were very big on all the sentiment around holidays, birthdays and especially Valentines Day, our first date. I got flowers and cards all year round and I thought I was the luckiest woman alive. Of course I reciprocated with my own cards balloons and notes in the lunch box how romantic.

When the relationship went south and another woman entered the picture he continued the practice of sending me flowers and even gifts. I would occasionally come out to my car and find a note asking me to meet him for drinks. This caused me great distress at the time because I confused the sentiment with love. The big splash for the real thing. This continued up until the their wedding.

What I realized is that these acts didn't mean anything except some sort of restitution for being a schmuck at the time. Really just to make himself feel better I guess. I am not saying they were not done with sincerity because in the moment, they were done, I am sure he was very sincere. Flowers can cover a multitude of sins but not the fact you are about to marry someone else.

In my last relationship I didn't want any of that no big declarations of love or any sentiment at all and that's what I got. I was happy not to have grand gestures of love I wanted quiet behind the scenes commitment and follow through. Security that all those grand gestures never gave me. Living with the effects of alcoholism required grand gestures to cover up the real crap that was going on.

Ironically when the last relationship ended it ended without a bang. Just as it began we never really had an anniversary or celebrated much of anything. Never really any emotional ups and downs. There was another woman but that really wasn't the reason. It was because I picked someone so opposite of what I had known with my husband without really thinking it through. It was love for sure but without the emotions it ultimately fizzled out.

Extremes that is where I always go with just about anything. All or nothing and it is hard for me to admit that even now. I do come back to the middle eventually because it is there I find peace. Even if it took a decade to realize maybe I didn't need to go to that extreme. I can accept that this was my own doing and the relationship was part of my own learning process and I did learn a lot about what doesn't work for me.

So I am back to the middle now and looking for someone that will celebrate Valentines with me but won't send me flowers while there seeing someone else. I don't need the emotional excitement of the active alcoholics life anymore or someone who can't express emotions at all.

I do believe you attract your emotional equal and that is also hard to admit. I was shutdown emotionally after my marriage ended and was happy to be with someone equally shutdown. But over time I changed and really did want more. I needed to get out but I am loyal to the death. God did for me what I couldn't do for myself as usual.

Loving oneself can be truly the greatest love of all. Happy Valentines Day.