Look how pretty those clouds are. Living in the moment

On my vacation I spent time with my niece and nephews. The first two days I spent with the oldest 24 we hiked and talked non stop. We discussed the world the one we live in and the spiritual world we are striving to get to. We wrapped our visit up because he had an out of town wedding to attend. He is the professional groomsman amongst his friends.

The next few days I spent with his sister a finance major working three jobs this summer while attending to a new boyfriend. She has all the balls in the air and managed us both by inviting him to lunch with us or inviting me to lunch with them I am not sure. Very efficient and very familiar to me when I had the world by the tale.

The youngest of the three is 15 and is his own man. He is mild mannered and prefers electronics and machines to conversation. He did make it clear to me that he was available for hiking himself after his job as camp counselor ended at 3 each day. I apparently was neglecting him. His job as counselor consisted of taking the kids hiking each day so I assumed he would prefer his games to his aunt. I was wrong.

One afternoon we decided to drive up the parkway to Skinny Dip Falls. His sister was going to go with us if she could juggle her schedule. I think he wanted her to go because he thought I would get lost on the parkway like his mom. We waited and when she was a no show we took off on our own.

It was a long drive 45 minutes high in the mountains. I asked him some questions and he answered them. It was mostly quiet except when we came upon a mile marker and we calculated how far we had to go. After a long bit of silence we rounded one curve and he said look how pretty those clouds are.

Wise beyond his years comfortable with quiet and seeing the beauty before him. Isn't that what peace is all about? Living in the moment.

Finding more freedom from the past - New labels

I mentioned before that during a meeting someone said "what would you do if you had no fear?" In my mind I said I would take off and see my sister. So I did.

The timing was right for me and my customers. Maybe not perfect for anyone else with the owner out of town but I decided to just do it anyway. I have played the part of manager and keeper of all things over and over again. I don't need this label I have given myself. I am good at it but that doesn't mean I have to do it again and again.

Miracle of miracles everything went fine a couple of crisis but nothing with my customers. I felt strange being out of character but I got over it pretty quick. I don't want a permanent role I want to be free. This is a daily choice to be free from past definitions of myself.

The trip was the best ever probably because it was like visiting for the first time. I was different I was free from my childish self and able to meet my sister as one adult to another. In the past I had baggage. This time we talked one adult to another the timing was perfect. I said I was sorry I hadn't been there for her the past 10 years and she said she was sorry she left me with my dad and stepmother at 13.

I had to get rid of my demons from the past before this embrace could happen. I have felt alone since the death of my mom and it was painful to be around my sister. She did have a relationship with my dad that I did not. It was important to her because she had children. I felt judged and was judged for my decision to stay away.

Time uncovers truths when the opportunity is right. Our black and white views become gray with age and we can either choose to open our eyes or bury our heads a little deeper. My mom taught us that the truth will set you free and we both got that.

We are starting fresh no past to hinder us and this is quite the miracle. I am able to accept her as she is instead of who I want her to be. I told her that I wanted her to have what I had and she said she just wanted me to have what she had. Who cares now we got what we got and some of it was good and some of it was bad.

Finally letting go of the past and accepting the present is all I have to work with frees me from the restrictions I put on myself. It is my own thoughts about the past that binds me.

Space and time - Let me think about that

I have been considering where I want to go from here regarding this blog and 12 step work. With my recent revelations about being fully awake I wanted to share what I can about how I got here.

Step 12 - Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps try to carry this message to others, and practice these principles in all our affairs.

I am a practical person and always want to cut to the chase. It was never about the journey for me but the destination. When I recently reached, in my mind, the destination, I was devastated. I untied the final knot in the tangle mess I have carried for my whole life and I felt the fear of all fears there was nothing left.

The silence was deafening. I realized that I had created what I had perceived as myself. In all my millions of thoughts I had established the character of myself and maintained the character by reinforcing those opinions with more thoughts. When I repeated my story to others they would help me to reinforce my story. I was stuck in the pain of the events of my life because without the story, who would I be?

This idea occurred to me when the woman who was a brain doctor had a stroke and lost her memory. She said she was free of past pain and could focus on what she wanted to do today. She also said she had to emotionally read people to know whether to trust them or not. She didn't remember them so all she had was her own intuition.

About this time you might be thinking I am nuts and I am. Even though it might sound arrogant to say I have reached the end of my journey but it is actually very humbling. In my mind I made myself the most important thing. My focus on the pain of the past kept me unconscious to the present and all that is before me. I made it complicated because making it complicated makes me more important.

I have some cleaning up to do from the fall out of delving even deeper into self-absorption. I had to go there because I went. There are no mistakes.

Step Nine: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Why am I always surprised when there is yet another spiritual awakening. I can't believe I am going to have to say this: it is about the journey and at this point my bags are empty so traveling will be light.

In the words of a great spiritual teacher. How would feel without that thought? Can we let it go of our painful thoughts and free ourselves.

Finding Joy - Super 8 - Letting go

I did some cleaning Sunday as part of my new slogan "Embrace it or get rid of it". I went through some photo albums of my first family vacation with my ex. I could see I was unhappy on that trip. I already felt trapped. I remember painting pottery. It was the one thing at the resort that I could get in to.

I know it was nobody's fault. I have hurried through my life without stopping and asking myself, what do I really want to do with my time? Opportunities just presented themselves and I said might as well because I didn't have a better plan.

It is easy to just accept what comes your way or just go with the flow. I discovered recently that I have to find out what is fun for me and try different things. Even if that means doing things alone or facing failure.

The first thing I discovered was that I like to go to the movies alone in the middle of the day. A big empty theater with gigantic sound thrills me. I like being alone doing this because I don't have to coordinate with anyone. I can just drive to the theater and see the next movie.

I saw Super 8 Imax yesterday. It was great and only five people in the theater. The Imax part was a splurge but worth it. How can such a simple thing as going to the movies in the middle of the day be so much fun.

I think I have spent my life making things run smoothly for the greater good and never felt appreciated. I didn't think I was doing for the appreciation I thought I was doing it to make the lives of others better but I neglected my own needs in the process.

This has been my life lesson up until now. I have repeated this over and over. I put my time and energy into something and I make it run perfectly. I am invisible and then I get dumped or fired depending on the situation. I am shocked every time.

This happens to everyone at some point but I think I for me the solution is to stop doing this at the expense of my own wants and needs. Before I didn't want to spend the energy finding out what those wants and needs were so I ended just taking care of the needs of others.

So now I am just going to look for the things that give me joy and not worry about keeping things together. Can I really do that? Can I give up feeling responsible for the happiness of others? Can I let what happens happen without interfering?

I might be surprise who steps up or how things work out if I let go. Wish me luck.

Angry man update - You never know

I wrote last week about this really angry man that came into the showroom. Demanding and surly. He said he wanted the cheapest counter-top we had because they weren't going to live long.

We got into confrontation on what would be required for a deposit and he said he wasn't giving a deposit and I said if he could find that deal somewhere else he should take it. He stormed out.

I was surprised when his wife called me and wanted me to come and measure today. It was a bit daunting to think about being on his territory and having another confrontation. But I put my fears aside and went to their house this afternoon.

When I got there he was sitting inside the garage smoking. It is 100 degrees today. He was breaking from cutting the grass at 3:00 in the afternoon. Did I mention it is 100 degrees today. He said hello and I ask if I should go to the front door he said yes and his wife opened the door.

I walked in and she immediately told me that her son had a brain embolism and died two weeks ago suddenly. She showed me a necklace she just picked up with his fingerprint on it, he was only 41.

No wonder he said they were all going to die soon. Their son had started renovating the kitchen for them and hadn't finished.

As I was leaving she thanked me for coming after what happened last weekend. She said he is handling things his own way. I waved goodbye to him as I was leaving.

Life is not fair. I don't have kids but it seems like that would be particularly hard to come to terms with losing a child. It is out of the natural order of things.

I thought I was glad I didn't refuse to come to her house. It made think about all the people you meet that are angry or rude. Something made them that way. Maybe something that happened that day or a week ago or even ten years ago, who knows.

Solutions - Step Four - Layers of resentment

This picture of steps makes me think of how when you are working the steps there is a little landing to rest on before you continue.

When I find myself in yet another place of letting go or in this case of jumping off I have to stop and reflect on how I got here.

When I started the program I believed that most things were concrete and had to be endured. Life dished out bad stuff and you suffered through the best you could. You were permanently scarred by your parents and a situation outside your control and you have to learn to live with the broken person you have become.

What the program and other spiritual adventures eventually brought me to was that wasn't really true. It was only true if I believed it to be true. That statement brought up a lot of resistance in my own mind. Things did happen to me so what do you mean it is my choice to continue to give those things power over me.

I didn't want it to be in my control I wanted someone to pay, someone to say they were sorry and then I wanted to find someone that I could trust that would never ever hurt me that way again. I was living in a fantasy.

Because of my confusion and pain I was no where ready to give up my cherished bag of righteous indignation. This is where the fourth step came in the first time. I think this is why we avoid it for as long as possible because after one, two, three we feel pretty good but we know within the fourth step lies secrets. Secrets that we have hidden about ourselves, terrible stuff.

Letting go of what we fear most frees us. My first fourth step was just the story of my life as I perceived it. At that time from a child's perspective. The neglect and isolation while my mother was sick. Then how my father chose my step mother over me and ending with my ex-husband choosing another woman over me. Can anyone see a pattern here? This was all I could handle acknowledging who wronged me. Resentments.

Then the next time around it got a little more serious, who did I wrong. In my mind nobody I was clearly the victim in my life and wallowing in self-pity and wanting comfort. I still do this but at least I can see it now. I had to own up to hurting other people. I really did the hurting in an unconscious way. I was hard as nails and ignored their opinions and pretended they didn't have feelings. I had gotten rid of my feelings, so I thought, after all those disappointments I wasn't about to feel bad for you.

This kind of thinking kept me stuck for a long time especially when it came to getting over my issues with my dad. I had to find a way to see him as human. One adult to another not from the child's view. From a child's perspective I wanted more but I didn't get it so how does hating him make me a happier person.

It wasn't that simple. First I had to make him human I did this by thinking about his life as a child. There was no love there and he was responsible for rounding up this siblings for regular beatings. As an adult he became a pacifist he wanted no conflict. I had to see this first.

Years later after I lost the most important person in my own life I had to see that my step mother ended his grief over my mother and he wasn't about to let anything change that. No, he wasn't acting in my best interest, he just wanted to be happy.

The next part of the healing of the fourth step is I had to ask myself, have I ever hurt someone else when I was just trying to feel better myself? Have I ever done anything without regard to another persons feelings. In grief did I do anything out or survival. Yes, but I expected more from him because he was my father. Did other people expect more from me? Yes. Am I capable of doing to others what has been done to me. Yes, I didn't believe that until I starting listing my grievances and turning them around.

Can I really expect people to treat me better than I treat them? This is a daily thing for me to look at (step 10). You spot it you got it they say. An on going issue. I ask myself, have I ever done that? It is humbling. So I have to let go and see it is not personal. I don't get up each day and plan to treat people bad. If I do hurt someone it is because I am not fully aware. The steps keep me awake. They help me see my own limitations and accept that we all have them.

This is just a little piece of my experience with the fourth step and the way I finally let go of my biggest resentment over my dad. But this happened in layers. Each time I was in pain it gave me an opportunity let more of it go.

I discovered that my thoughts were hurting me not something that happened when I was a helpless child. I see that no matter what I can't change that time in my life but I can keep the thought of it from hurting me now.

It is the end or just the beginning.

I mentioned before that I feel as if my quest for truth has come to an end. This really scared me to see the gaping hole that will be left as I abandon my search for God. What I have found is that he has been here all along, I have just had my eyes shut.

I wanted to find the secret formula for happiness and for curing what ails me. I wanted it to be complicated and the road less traveled. I wanted the experience to be unique and special to me. God doesn't work that way he knows we are all equally special because he made us.

I am not saying I have found utopia or that the conclusion I have come to would or should work for anyone else. I just know that my journey for the truth has come to an end and going forward I am willing to accept the grace of each day. I feel free for the first time since I was eight and spent the summer making mud pies.

How did I get here? Through the steps mostly. This part of the story is unique to me. It was my journey and I was stuck for awhile and then I wasn't. I wanted it to be complicated because I am complicated. This statement defines me. I want to believe I am special and there lies the problem. It keeps me stuck and simple frees me.

The steps are simple for a reason. Even if I decided to make them complicated it is because I was sick and in my sickness I have to make it hard. I understand hard simple not so much.

Could it be that freedom from pain is as simple as 12 steps? Is it my need to make it hard that slows me down? My need to feel special that keeps me in the I am broken loop.

I have never before felt this way. I knew my mind wasn't 100% willing to relinquish control over me but I never thought it really thrived on holding me back.

Over the past months I have struggled with this idea. The idea of letting go of the search for God and just living. My mind was against this and the backlash was huge. You will have nothing left of who you thought you were and will be a simple minded fool. Your life will be empty and you will be bored. My biggest fear.

I broke free and ran like the wind, just like I did when I was eight. I was able to see that without this search I could be a giver and not a taker. I could fill my time living instead searching. I could offer comfort instead of asking for comfort. I could learn to be comfortable being fixed instead of comfortable being broken.

So what is next? I don't really know and it doesn't matter. I am sure my ego will try to find ways to sabotage my freedom. What do you think you are perfect? Yes, I am perfectly human and have done the best I could even when sometimes even my best wasn't good enough. It is the past and today I choose better.

I am playing it be ear now. I have made plans to go see my sister when the owner comes back next week. I am on a quest for joy now and we will see where that takes me.