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. 

Breaking lifetime patterns - Starting over - self appreciation

I have always looked for some kind of confirmation from other people to be sure that I was good enough. Especially from the people closest to me just waiting for them to say " what a great job you have done."  This makes me think about when I was a kid and my mother made me clean my room and I would show her the result and she would point out something I missed or comment that it was my room and I should keep it clean for myself.

This was my family mind set and my sister has also parented the same way.  No one ever says a good word of encouragement and for a child you hear "you are not enough."  I think this leads to trying constantly to meet the expectations of those around us. People love it too and they love you until something happens and you just can't be your old pleasing self anymore. 

You hit a wall of being used up. You don't know you are used up until it happens. I watched the movie "The Breakup" last night which is painful to watch. I have been in this kind of relationship many times. For my part I would quietly do the things that I always did seeing myself as being the best person I could be for the relationship and the other person doing just what they wanted all the time. 

It is their right to do this and it was my right to imagine I was participating in an equal relationship.  This isn't just the happily ever after relationships even friendships can feel so one sided. They like you because you are reliable and will always be there if they need something. 

I don't think anyone is to blame it is just a good match.  I do think it is my fault that I didn't know I need to be appreciated. Being appreciated was like getting approval from my mother who always withheld that appreciation. By the time my stepmother came alone I was eager to please and when I pleased her then good things happened sometimes.

I think my point is with this post is that these are patterns laid done in our brain early and when they are repeated we think they are a part of who we are permanently. It is the repetition the makes them harder to get rid of. I have chosen to change this pattern.

I realize I have been my own worst enemy though out my life. First I always wanted something or someone to make me feel better about myself.  I wanted someone to make me feel like I was safe and secure. My long term relationships have been mostly with stalkers who made me feel in the beginning that I was really perfect. This filled the emptiness and self doubt I had about myself. I loved that intensity that quickly faded when they found out I was just a regular person.

I found out that I could not show weakness of vulnerability. This was the kiss of death when you are suppose to be perfect. Unfortunately life dishes out things you just can't cope with and sometimes you do need help. This is when you find out what kind of relationship you have.

I am happy today without those people in my life. Would I try again with someone new? Sure. I am not thinking a relationship is something I need but maybe something I want. 

I am my own mother now giving myself encouragement when I need it and even praise for a job well done. When I am lonely and tired I just rest and call someone. I don't beat myself up for having a down day. I know that tomorrow will be better. 

I use to want perfection or at least productivity every day but sometimes I just need to rest and recharge and leave my to do list for tomorrow. I can do this without worrying it is the start of a pattern of laziness.  I have accomplish a lot in my life and now I am focused on becoming a more accomplished artist.  This is just for me and I am having a blast. 

Controlling my ADD and OCD - Being enough - You bother me too

 I have had an up and down week - really up on Thursday afternoon when I worked on straightening out my new studio room.  Because I am ADD with a little OCD  mixed in I can spend a lot of time getting ready to do something. Organizing is my thing and getting everything just right is my game.  What happens when I do get it right my mind wants to constantly tweak it over and over. 

This makes me an excellent designer and I have an eye to get everything just right. Unfortunately when I am trying to accomplish a task the actually task never gets done. Always in a state of preparing for something not doing the thing.  After a lifetime of living with this I just make myself dive in and start working even if it is in a heap of mess on my desk. I just focus on the task and stay with it until I am finished. Blocking out my surroundings.

I did take the afternoon to organized and sort through all the stuff I have carried from other rooms to the studio.  I had a ladder in there with a bunch of tools where I replaced the ceiling fan last week with a 2 x 2 flush mount led light with 5000k bulbs.  The problem with getting older is there is not enough light ever. Now I am able to see perfectly with the daylight bulb.

I have been practicing portrait drawings from the 100 faces in 10 day challenge. The challenge is over and I am doing more like 10 faces a week. I have be drawing tiny little faces for some reason which is really different for me. I am using mechanical pens to get the details.

Now for the rest of the down part of the week starting with an angry man yelling at me because the price of what he wanted is higher than what he imagined. This is my world with pricing and the expectation of others. Usually it isn't the in my face kind of reaction - no mask either. 

The week went on and Wednesday without knowing it I was exposed to Covid by a coworker. He had it before but has never worn a mask. It is rare that we interact but he came into the office where I was talking to someone else.  It was Friday afternoon before I found out I had been exposed. I have been vaccinated and hope that between that and my excellent immune system I will be fine.  I exposed my customer on Friday they were not wearing mask. 

It is tricky out there because all this is so complicated for the brain. We just want a clear choice and we want to just dig in to one thing.  We were made to make simple choices every day to stay alive. That is how we operate not really weighing 20 options and then carefully deciding what is the right one. This is why we only listen to people that agree with us or even look like us because that is the way we are wired. 

I just heard a scientist say for someone to change a childhood core belief it takes 2 years. It isn't fun to be the person questioning their beliefs.  I have spent my whole life analyzing the beliefs I have in my head and figuring out where they came from and whether they serve me now as an adult. 

I know too much now to accept the status quo. I have done too much digging and now I can no longer live in a fairy tale. Being awake hasn't made me happier but it is too late to go back now. I am peaceful and happy most of the time. I accept people where they are unless they are in my face or in my space and then I will stand up for myself. 

No one really knows how they appear to other people especially me.  I have worried about this all my life because I am not everyone's cup of tea an acquired taste one so called friend said. Since I have found happiness in my own solitude I have stop really worrying about it. This has felt like real freedom to me.  I have always felt like I was a bother to people in some way. Now I say - so what! They bother me a lot of times too so I am over it. 

This is what birthdays do to you they tell you - your time is running out so you better get on with it so I am doing art and loving it.  I am pretending I am in school and practicing every day and watching videos about art.

I woke up today tired and a little cranky my new neighbors are having celebrations every Saturday night on their back porch. It was going on until after 1 am.  It is just talking but we live on a small ravine with water and it echos. No music just loud voices of discussion. I am sure they have no idea how loud they sound.  When I had meditation groups on my porch I would say "don't say anything here that you don't want the whole neighborhood to hear."  This is what happens with sound and water. 

I feel better after writing so I am off to do a few chores and some art. 

Spiritual Awakening - Being empty

Last weeks post that didn't get published...

I woke up late today and took my coffee out to the porch.   I heard a loud screeching noise from a flock of birds.  It is very wooded in the back and I noticed a large owl sitting on a branch with dozens of birds flapping around him.  He didn't look like he was that interested and was ignoring them. I wondered what it would be like to get that kind of reception where ever you went. 

We are different from the animals in that we have psychological feelings and the animals don't. I am guessing the doesn't sit around and thinking "why don't these birds like me?"  Maybe asking their mate "what can I do to be more liked?"  She might reply "stop eating there children for a start." 

I think we are the only ones plagued by self awareness and are worried about what other people think of us. We really mostly care about our inner circle but in general we expect everyone to like us. My mother taught me early on that not everyone would like me.  Mostly because we were persecuted Pentecostals.  It was expected that children of God would be outsiders in this world and not understood by the world.

I was comfortable with being on the outside for many reasons. I did help that I could lean on the religious angle to back me up.  It definitely didn't help the way I dressed and the fact that I couldn't participate in the dance session we had every Friday. 

It is funny now that I don't really fit in with the God's chosen group either. I never could buy the whole story that we had the answers and everyone out there was going to burn. I remember asking my daddy "what if we are wrong and those other churches are right?"

 It didn't make sense to me that we would be the lucky ones and all the other nice people were doomed. He was not happy with my many questions and it was the beginning of me having to choose between us and them.

I have lived my life on the fence which is a very insecure place. I haven't been able to believe without question anything really. I can always see the merits of both ideas if you are in the chosen group what better way to feel safe and secure.  It doesn't explain when bad things happen to good people. The story of Job it is all just a test. The holes in all the different  beliefs are the same.

I do believe we all have a spirit and some carry negative energy with them. Their brain has locked in on some event and they are stuck. Eckhart Tole said that he was so stress and agitated that is mind just couldn't take it anymore he had a spiritual awakening.  This is a story many people tell about there spiritual awakening. 

I have experience this myself I had a steady obsessive mind manically looking for the answer to my unhappiness and the negative self talk just kept searching for the answer and then there was nothing. One day I just woke up empty and calm and I have been that way ever since.

I read about this medically that when the brain reaches a point it can't function it basically snaps to protect it'self. I couldn't function any longer where I was and I needed a correction. It felt like nothing I had experienced before. Someone said to me pointing to some books I bought "the person that bought those books is gone aren't they?"  "Yes" was my answer I have no doubt that who I was before "the awakening" has been replaced.

First replaced by nothing and then slowly moved back to the person I was as a child. Without the imprints of sorrow and loss that being human lays upon you. It is an awkward place to be because you can see easily where others are because you have been there but you know you can't really help them. I want to shout "it isn't real" the pain you feel you are causing yourself with the words in your mind. 

I feel like the owl in the tree today just doing my own thing while birds are flying around me screeching. I don't even hear the screeching anymore. I care deeply that others suffer and offer words of encouragement but when your mind is in chaos - you can't hear me - I can't save you.

I do believe those that become addicted probably have a mind like mine.  One that can only be tamed with some kind of substance. It only works temporarily and then you want more. The answer I think is recognizing it is both physical and emotional and dealing with both sides of that is the only answer.  

Art - Finding freedom within

I have been feeling pretty great since I started back doing some art. When this happens I always want to analyze it and ask why now and why art? About six months ago I contemplated packing up all my supplies and getting rid of them. I told myself "you will never feel inspired to do that again". 

This wasn't really in a bad way but I thought maybe I was holding on to a part of me that wasn't there anymore.  Maybe I was ready to move on. I have bought tons of supplies over literally decades and done nothing with them. A moment of inspiration where I imagined myself sitting down and painting or drawing. I could never bring myself to find the joy I knew growing up where creating was all I wanted to do.

When I was child even before my mother got sick I was exiled to our basement and I created non stop. In high school I turned to art as an outlet for the pain I felt being used by my family as a their personal live in servant. Art was freedom and the other students mostly outcast and mostly high were not judgmental and I was just another person struggling through life.

The art world in general can also be competitive and we were all divided into two categories by the teacher talented and not so talented. I am my own worst critic and I could see that I belonged in the second group.  I took this to heart but it was confirmed when two of us were asked to paint the backdrop for our school play. We spent days on it a bright beautiful and colorful sunset only to find that when the curtain was raised someone talented had painted a sad gray sky with boats. 

I dropped out of art after that. Our art teacher should of told us but she was in her 20's and probably couldn't face us. My thoughts about myself had been confirmed I wasn't good enough to be an artist. 

It always amazes me how we internalize the things that happen when our brain is still forming and how adults have no idea how their actions and words can change lives for better or for worse. 

I feel free these days like I have never before.  I have accepted that I am that girl in the basement creating non-stop. I have tried to be many other things to fit into this world but nothing really stuck.  I have to create and I do that with my work and I can visit the outside world while I am doing it. It has taken me forever to accept who I am and enjoy everyday.

We can see that the world we have created in our head is mostly fiction and can be re-written to reflect the life we want for ourselves now. We can forgive others for their careless words or thoughtless actions that changed us.  We can forgive ourselves for internalizing these things and believing them for the decades that followed. It is our own voice that decides to give those words meaning. 

I woke up at 7 this morning made myself an espresso and have drawn one portrait and completed one pen and ink drawing. I am no longer holding myself back and carrying around the voices of my childhood in my head. I am happy to be the girl in the basement creating.  

Art and the creative process is healing and I believe a form of meditation. I can let go and just let it all out. 

  

Immaturity - Looking for a cure for deep sadness outside myself

For some reason this time of year is my favorite it seems like even if it is hot outside the light is changing. I feel more energized and feel like I need to do some housekeeping. Not literally even though I do like order I am not a clean freak.  When I was young waiting for my drinker to come home I spent that time cleaning and watching the clock. This broke me of my cleaning obsession.

My sister recently said that I should spend more time at the beach.  She lives in the mountains so the beach seems like the perfect solution to anything.  I have lived near the beach since I was 17 and I did go not for real pleasure but as a place to grieve. I associate the beach with all those years and I not that person anymore. I was grieving a lifetime of loss and now I just deal with loss and grief everyday as it comes up. 

I don't feel lost and alone anymore and I am not waiting for the people that say they love me to do the right thing. I thought their love would cure the deep sadness I had inside left by the loss of my mother.  I picked people who had the same idea that I could cure their deep loss too. They left me because they thought someone else would cure the sadness. I interpreted this as "I am not lovable".

This idea I thought was based on facts and I didn't realize that it was also based on immaturity. I have been without adult support since my mother got sick.  My dad took living in the present to a whole new level more like out of sight out of mind. I didn't mind and knew how to take care of myself.  The only problem was that my expectations of life and dealing with people stayed from that eight year old perspective. 

It didn't help that I am strong and appear confident even though inside I am sensitive and can see and feel every emotion in any person around me. If your sad then I am sad. I think this is something I was born with I can also see motives behind emotions. The subtle manipulation between people even if they don't realize it themselves.   

I stayed true to myself until I ended up in a bad situation when my dad remarried. I am smart and realized I had to become who she wanted me to be to survive. It worked to begin with but then as with all sick people the rules changed and I could not keep up. At 14 I became seriously depressed and slept when I was going to school or doing chores. 

This was the eight year old in me trying to survive.  I felt trapped in this sadness and my life was a prison. I did try to escape but I was too young and I was brought back and the situation got worse. This was the beginning of my feeling shut down and I have repeated this situation with all my adult relationships.

When your in a situation where there isn't any way out your mind just blows a casket. For my own analytical mind it just kept looking for a solution a way out. This was the first time I thought it would be easier not to be alive. I never acted on this because I really felt too paralyzed to do anything. 

I felt totally trapped with no way out of my own misery. I have felt that feeling my whole life like I am not where I should be and worse I am not like other people who can just mindlessly go through life not thinking about too much.  

When I have been in relationships I felt stuck and stagnant doing routine things that felt like a weight tied around my neck under water. I tried to speak up but everybody liked that I was taking care of them and I liked feeling needed. Nobody thanked me for my service and the eight year old was expecting something in return. 

I can do a lot and I enjoy doing it but I also get tired and any routine is the death of me. I have wanted love all my life and I have experienced it but it felt conditional. Life is conditional is what I wish my eight year old understood all those years. You should do what you want and either people love you or not.

You can't do this until you know your own worth. I needed to be needed to prove to myself that I was lovable. This wasn't love it was other people being happy to have me do everything for them who wouldn't? Don't get me wrong I have been loved and I was the one who gave them everything without demanding anything in return. I was earning their love. 

I have always felt like a servant in my relationships when I wasn't performing then support and love was withdrawn. As an eight year old I blamed myself for not being good enough and tried to make myself better never realizing that this does not work. 

I have been happy for awhile now an only recently have felt a since of true freedom. Taking care of myself for myself and only interacting with people that love me "just the way I am". 

My job gives me the opportunity to do for other and get paid.  Even with that I don't take on anyone that doesn't at least respect my time and energy. This has made me much happier and the kind of customers that end up with me are happier too. 

I will say that I didn't know I was trying to buy love in my relationships.  I just thought I love these people and I want to take care of them.  Even when they stopped being worthy of my love. That is hard to write but it is true everyone doesn't deserve my love and attention. I can be kind but I can draw the line when it is warranted. 

This has turned into a long complicated post but it feels right to share this today. I want to let you know that we have all been selfish and self absorbed just trying to sort out the overwhelming sadness our eight year old self feels inside. 

I have ask myself a million times "what is wrong with you?"  I thought it was something to be fixed and it really has come down to immaturity. I have worked hard to looked at my beliefs about myself and ask myself where they came from and if they are really true now.

I also can look back and see all that I have contributed throughout my life and be proud of those things. Today I tried to encourage people that cross my path. I don't accept the pain of others as my own anymore. I can love them from afar if I need and be there as an adult without strings attached.

I deserve better - games our mind plays on us

I am working on my art and feeling great today.  It is my birthday three day weekend and I have been waking up earlier and working on a portrait drawing method called "Atelier" I think that is the right spelling.  It is a drawing method that is very mechanical and tedious and a real challenge.  The point behind it is that your own eye doesn't really see what is there.  It fixes things that it sees based on what it has seen before.

This made me think that this is the way we see life in general.  Our version of the truth filling in the parts that we don't understand or really can't accept.  We all do it explaining away what someone meant or why they hurt us.  We just can't imagine they did those things on purpose.  Our version is easier to swallow and keeps us in the game.

I watched a psychiatrist explain that when you get stuck for a long time it is usually because you don't want to make the other person out to be the bad guy.  We take on the behavior of the other person as our fault.  Instead of saying that the other person did not treat us right and we didn't deserve to be treated that way no matter where they were coming from. 

This is me I have always blamed myself for not being good enough. This was disguised by my explaining away someone else's behavior instead of just letting them go first physically and then emotionally. 

For me it is the thought that "I deserve better" in my own mind I was never too sure that was true. I had labeled myself as a problem early on because to my family I was a problem. I felt honored that people would be my find friend or my partner for that matter.  I was so lucky to find people that would put up with me. 

I worked hard to keep those relationships by being of service. I would anticipate the needs of others hoping to keep those relationships alive.  I wanted to be loved and I learned early if you do stuff for other people it makes them happy and they definitely like you better.

This of course is giving with strings attached and it is often very one sided.  It is at the core of all of my suffering and it leads to the draining of my soul and my energy.  Nice people are good to have around when you need them. 

I am not saying you shouldn't give and I have given a lot but when you are doing it because it is expected or because it makes a you see yourself as a nice it can ultimately drain you of all your energy.  

I have given to those I have loved and it never occurred to me that it wasn't without strings. I saw my mother give until she was invisible and then she got sick. She was taught that this is what God wanted her to do. In all the pictures of her she wasn't smiling and if she was it did not seems genuine. She had to get sick to be taken care of. 

I know now that my mind as well as my eyes tell me what I want to see and hear.  It is nature's way to deceive us when reality doesn't quite measure up. I have painted a rosy picture many times when I just couldn't handle reality. I am happy to have found a new passion with my art something I have wished for all my life but never thought I was as good as a real artist should be.  

I had a good birthday and heard from a lot of people that love me just the way I am. It is nice to feel free and happy without the inner critic running my life. Happy birthday to me.